(R Keith Loftin) Christian Physicalism Philosoph (B-Ok - CC)

i
Christian Physicalism?
Philosophical Theological
Criticisms
Edited by
R. Keith Loftin and Joshua R. Farris
Foreword by
Thomas H. McCall
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Names: Loftin, R. Keith, 1981- editor.

Title: Christian physicalism? : philosophical theological criticisms / edited by
R. Keith Loftin and Joshua R. Farris.
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ISBN 9781498549240 (electronic) | ISBN 9781498549233 (cloth : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Human body—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Theological
anthropology—Christianity. | Materialism—Religious aspects—Christianity. |
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Keith: For Julie, my love.
Joshua: To John Cooper, for his spirited theological

defenses of the soul and the intermediate state.
Contents
Forewordix
Thomas H. McCall
Acknowledgmentsxi
Christian Physicalism? An Introduction xiii
Joshua R. Farris and R. Keith Loftin
1 The Incorporeality of the Soul in Patristic Thought 1

Paul L. Gavrilyuk
2 Christian Physicalism: Against the Medieval Divines 27
Thomas Atkinson
3 Substance Dualism and the Diachronic/Synchronic Unity of
Consciousness43
J. P. Moreland
4 Christian Physicalism and Our Knowledge of God 75
Angus Menuge
5 Physicalism, Divine Eternality, and Life Everlasting 99
R. Keith Loftin and R. T. Mullins
6 Holy Saturday and Christian Theological Anthropology 117
Jason McMartin
7 Physicalism, the Incarnation, and Holy Saturday:
A Conversation with Karl Barth 137
Marc Cortez
8 Physicalist Christology and the Two Sons Worry 153
R. T. Mullins
vii
viii Contents
9 Physicalism and the Death of Christ 175

Charles Taliaferro
10 Christian Materialism Entails Pelagianism 189
Matthew J. Hart
11 Sanctification and Physicalism 213
R. Scott Smith
12 euroscience, Spiritual Formation, and Bodily Souls:
N
A Critique of Christian Physicalism 231
Brandon Rickabaugh and C. Stephen Evans
13 ope for Christian Materialism? Problems of Too
H
Many Thinkers 257
Jonathan J. Loose
14 How to Lose the Intermediate State without Losing Your Soul 271
James T. Turner, Jr.
15 ismantling Bodily Resurrection Objections to
D
Mind-Body Dualism 295
Brandon Rickabaugh
16 “ Absent from the Body . . . Present with the Lord”:
Is the Intermediate State Fatal to Physicalism? 319
John W. Cooper
17 Physicalism and Sin 341
Charles Taliaferro
18 hristian Materialism and Christian Ethics:
C
Moral Debt and an Ethic of Life 351
Jonathan J. Loose
19 The Incompatibility of Physicalism with Physics 371
Bruce L. Gordon
20 eflections on Christian Physicalism by a
R
Veteran Antiphysicalist 403
Howard Robinson
Afterword409
Gerald O’Collins
Bibliography411
Index429
About the Contributors 433
Foreword
The past few decades have witnessed some truly remarkable shifts in Chris-
tian views of the human person. Among the most important changes is the
large-scale movement from various versions of mind-body dualism to the
adoption and defense of various forms of physicalism. For centuries, Chris-
tian theologians—patristic, medieval, and modern, and Orthodox, Roman
Catholic, and Protestant—have understood the mind or soul as essential
to humanity. There have, of course, been significant disagreements among
these theologians; some have thought that a human person is a soul that has
a body (or at least usually or ideally has a body), others have thought that the
human person has a soul. Various accounts of the mind-body relation have
been proffered, and it would be a mistake to lump them all together—clearly,
Origen’s theory, for instance, is not to be confused with that of Thomas Aqui-
nas. Despite the real and important differences, however, there is significant
continuity within the broad Christian tradition (especially when seen in com-
parison to the recent developments).
Matters have changed significantly. Many Christian theologians and phi-
losophers, often in dialogue with such widely diverse fields as philosophy
of mind, biblical studies, cognitive science, and neuroscience, have begun
to adopt and defend distinctly physicalist accounts of the human person.
Arguments in favor of physicalism come from various angles; some make a
case that the presumption in favor of dualism was really grounded in Greek
philosophy and was always really unworthy of Christian theology, some
argue that the case for dualism was based upon poor exegesis of Scripture,
some go further and argue that Scripture actually supports physicalism, and
some make the case that physicalism best accounts for the Christian hope
of the resurrection of the body. Appeals are made to exegesis, science, and
metaphysics; concerns are also raised about the ethical implications (either
ix
x Foreword
perceived or real) of the various versions of dualism. And some systematic

and philosophical theologians are now taking the further steps of applying
physicalist accounts of anthropology to other areas of Christian doctrine.
Indeed, we have now reached the point where it is sometimes taken for
granted that physicalism is the most fitting Christian view—or even the only
truly Christian position.
But questions abound; questions about the alleged weaknesses of various
forms of dualism, questions about the supposed strengths of physicalism,
questions about the various levels and kinds of arguments for and against
physicalism, and questions about the theological fecundity (or aridity) of
physicalism. Does physicalism really offer practical advantages in moral
theology and pastoral care (as is sometimes claimed)? Does physicalism offer
a better interpretation of Scripture? Indeed, can it even offer an adequate
understanding of biblical passages that seem to presuppose or teach dual-
ism—how might the physicalist provide an appropriate account of Paul’s
statement about those who are “absent from the body but present with the
Lord” (2 Cor 5:8)? Is physicalism any better off with respect to the problem
of “interaction,” or does any Christian physicalist who believes in divine
agency not encounter this problem elsewhere? Can physicalism cohere with
classical Christian commitments to the resurrection of the body (and the
intermediate state)? What is the relation of physicalism to such important
doctrines as original sin and sanctification? Is physicalism adequate for Chris-
tology, or does it run aground on the shoals of heterodox views? Clearly,
much work remains—there is much to be done not only at the exegetical,
historical-theological and theology-and-science levels but also with respect to
the ongoing metaphysical and constructive-systematic theological arguments
and issues. This volume takes up these challenges with sophistication, rigor,
and a deep sense that these things really matter. The essays in this book push
back against physicalism, and they push hard. Taken together, they present a
significant challenge to the physicalist option, and the book offers a careful
and spirited defense of dualism. All who take it seriously will be better off
for having engaged with it. Tolle lege.
Thomas H. McCall
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Acknowledgments
A number of people have helped this project along in various ways, whether
by providing feedback on chapters, encouragement, or helpful discussion.
Our thanks to Paul Gould, Ross Inman, Travis Dickinson, S. Mark Hamilton,
Jon Loose, Bruce Gordon, Jerry L. Walls, and Oliver Crisp for their help,
advice, or encouragement concerning the present project. A special thanks
goes to Charles Taliaferro for his advice and his stepping in to fill a need for
the volume. Thanks to all the Christian philosophers who have devoted their
lives to advancing substantive critiques of physicalism and defending the
need for the soul. We have in mind several examples including John Cooper,
Charles Taliaferro, Richard Swinburne, Howard Robinson, J. P. Moreland,
Alvin Plantinga, Stewart Goetz, Daniel Robinson, Keith Yandell, and Dean
Zimmerman, among others.
Many thanks to Sarah Craig for her editorial guidance from start to finish.
We want to thank Julia Torres for her excellent service by offering careful
proofs of the whole manuscript. Special thanks to the contributors who have
given us many reasons for doubting the viability of Christian physicalism.
The success of this volume goes to them.
xi
An Introduction
Joshua R. Farris and R. Keith Loftin
What does it mean to be a human? What are humans? Are they souls, souls
and bodies, or merely bodies and brains? These and other questions still con-
front us today. And these questions connect us to a longstanding tradition of
reflection on what it means to be human. However, the dialectic has changed
quite significantly from the belief that we are or have souls to the belief that
we are wholly physical in nature. Such a change has impacted our perception
not only on what it means to be human, but, to what extent we are connected
to the animal kingdom and our profound connection to robots as seen in the
growing transhumanist literature. With all that has changed in the developing
portrait of humanity, there is something often missing in the anthropological
discussions only theology can satisfy. Based on what follows, we are con-
vinced that physicalism has very little support and that Christians should
resist the trend to mold Christianity into its frame.
We take this one step further. We liken the recent attempts to bring
Christianity and physicalism together to reflect the larger recalcitrant narra-
tive characterizing the physicalism literature.1 As children sometimes develop
blind spots to the truth due to stubborn refusal to heed the parent’s instruc-
tion, so it is with the physicalist. Characteristic of the physicalist literature is
a stubborn refusal to carefully attend to the reality that there is more to the
world than meets the physical eye. So it is with Christian Physicalism.
A BRIEF STATE OF THE ART: WHY PHYSICALISM FAILS?
Having advanced throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century,
wholly physicalist accounts of human persons today are dominant within
contemporary philosophy of mind. From Gilbert Ryle to Jaegwon Kim,
xiii
xiv Christian Physicalism?
physicalists agree that no explanations of mental phenomena require appeal

to any nonphysical substance. Beyond this general agreement though a bevy
of views are on offer, with versions of the constitution view and animalism
gaining in popularity today. Within this context, especially within the past
twenty-five years, there has appeared a growing body of literature arguing
for the confluence of wholly materialist ontologies of human persons and
Christian theological commitments.2
While the influence of Christian physicalism has increased in recent years,
it does not at present dominate as the assumed ontology in biblical studies or
theology. In some circles of biblical scholarship, especially in the literature on
critical biblical studies, there is a common belief that some form of monism
(often conflated with materialism) is the teaching of Scripture, or, at a mini-
mum, the teaching that the collective voice of the Scriptural authors yields.
We are seeing theologians who are not tightly bound to the catholic, Nicene
tradition move in the direction of monism, if not materialism.3 However, this
is out of sync with the Church’s recognition of the soul’s persistence between
somatic death and somatic resurrection. The dogmatic teaching of the Catho-
lic Nicene tradition reflects the collective agreement of theological authorities
that affirm with one voice the doctrine of the soul (that is, as an immaterial
substance, or something near it) that has the possibility of persisting disem-
bodied during the interim state.4 Buttressed by the belief that Christ persisted
as a human on Holy Saturday, it is arguable that he models what will occur
for humans who die somatically prior to the somatic resurrection. While
uncharacteristic of the Catholic Nicene tradition, many Roman Catholic, as
well as reformed Catholics or Catholic reformed Christians, are moving in
the direction of affirming some sort of monistic anthropology and rejecting
dualistic anthropologies, especially as theological interpreters denounce the
doctrine of the interim state between somatic death and somatic resurrection.5
In fact, it has been argued quite vigorously that the rejection of the interim
disembodied state is a rejection of what is the natural and/or common inter-
pretation of Scripture, evident in the Catholic Church. John Cooper points
this out as a summary of his research:
The historic position seems to be the most natural interpretation of the biblical
text in its historical context. Scripture has been understood that way in ecumeni-
cal Christianity since the early church. It not only affirms the biblical emphasis
on the unity of human life, but also accounts for its two-stage eschatology—
personal existence between death and resurrection. It takes the biblical perspec-
tive as the framework for philosophical and scientific reflection on the human
constitution. In addition, this anthropology shares with most of the world’s
religions the belief that embodiment is not necessary for the soul or conscious-
ness—Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, animism, and popular deism.6
An Introduction xv
Such a view, what Cooper calls two-stage eschatology, wherein the soul
persists between death and resurrection, is a fixture in historic Catholic Chris-
tianity (found in all three traditions) and reflects the belief in a soul, or con-
sciousness, as distinct from materiality, in all the major religions of the world.
Reflecting the tendency to downplay the soul, substantial dualisms, and the
other-worldly message of the Bible, it is not uncommon to read biblical schol-
ars elevating the this-wordly message over the other-worldly message with
its attending reticence to affirm the doctrine of a soul. Famous and regarded
biblical scholar N. T. Wright reflects this sort of trend to hold off commitment
to the doctrine of the soul. While Wright affirms the two-stage eschatology
countenanced so rigorously by John Cooper, Matthew Levering, and others,
Wright is also reluctant to affirm the logical entailment that the doctrine of
the intermediate state yields some kind of substantive dualism (where the
soul is, at a minimum, separable as a substance weakly construed).7 It seems
the reticence is motivated by the desire to avoid any association with ancient
dualisms or the nasty denigration of the body so commonly perceived in
Cartesian dualism rather than a positive reason to affirm its denial.8
However, one need not affirm the two-stage eschatology to affirm the need
for the soul and reject the doctrine of materialism. As seen in the pages that
follow, one could affirm the need for a soul as that part that unifies the dis-
parate material parts and binds them together in such a way as to allow for
consciousness. Rather than affirm two-stage eschatology, one could affirm an
immediate resurrection view, all the while still holding firm to the need for an
immaterial part. This is seen in J. T. Turner’s chapter in the pages that follow.
While immediate resurrection has been commonplace for Christian material-
ists, and there are obvious motivations for a materialist to affirm immediate
resurrection, Turner makes it clear that one need not be a materialist to affirm
immediate resurrection.
A part of the trend away from variations of dualism toward materialism
and/or monism has to do with the preposterous cluster of beliefs in the success
of the physical sciences coupled with the belief that the scientific community
assumes a physicalist worldview—whereby the world can be explained by
biological and/or physical causes and effects. Theologies dominated by the
biological sciences or brain sciences often reflect what so often dominates the
scientific community, namely, the commitment to naturalism. Yet naturalism
has no firm situation in a worldview presupposing supernatural agents and
events (as in Christianity).9
Some theologians have bought into some, or many, of the trends and
assumptions typically characteristic of the scientific community.10 Taking
her cues from the supposed scientific consensus on human nature, theolo-
gian Susan A. Ross constructively takes up Philip Clayton’s emergentism
as a way to avoid the challenges to theological views of humans. She says,
xvi Christian Physicalism?
“Philosophical and especially theological understandings, to the extent that

they are grounded in some nonphysical basis for the human, such as rational-
ity or the soul, no longer have any credibility, at least for some scientists, in
an era when we are increasingly able to take the measure of the whole person
with observable data.”11 In the context of discussing neuroscience and its
compatibility with religion and the soul, Aku Visala rejects a strictly natural-
istic worldview and shows the compatibility neuroscience has with the soul
and its relation to God. He states,
Most theological anthropologies have maintained that humans are naturally and
essentially open to non-natural realities, revelation, or the experience of God.
Traditionally, John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas, for instance, maintained that
humans have something like a basic, natural ability to know God. Paul Tillich,
Karl Rahner and Wolfhart Pannenberg attempted to flesh out the implication of
this with tools they often derived from European philosophies of their time. Sim-
ilarly, late nineteenth century and early twentieth century theories in religious
studies and sociology of religion emphasized universal religious experience
and the fundamental social nature of religion, respectively. Some contemporary
theologians, such as Robert Jenson and J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, have empha-
sized the close links between the emergence of religion, humanity, and ritual
behavior. All these converging threads seem to point in the direction of religion
and religiousness being deeply ingrained into human nature and human beings.12
Similarly, philosopher of psychology Daniel N. Robinson pushes against any

physicalist attempt to naturalize religion in human nature. He states,
Moreover, the biographical facts gleaned from the lives of persons of faith
scarcely support the generalization that religion yields a calm and comforting
perspective on oneself and one’s world. Even expressing such a qualification
grants too much explanatory power to what are finally neurochemical and neu-
roelectrical events in brain tissue. The brain has no motives and seeks no solace.
That actual persons—possessed of brains and other anatomical structures—are,
indeed, motivated and do, indeed, strive to find deeper meaning in an other-
wise indifferent cosmos is beyond dispute. That such motives and longings are
somehow enabled by the brain should be readily granted but not as a fact that
would give the motives and longings to the brain or locate them in the brain.
Such inferences might well trigger activity in the anterior cingulate cortex in any
creature expecting propositions to be meaningful.13
The sciences, however, are not beholden to a physicalist ontology as the fol-
lowing chapters make clear. In fact, the sciences are inadequately assessed
without self-awareness, something we suggest is rooted in an immaterial
substance. The commitment to science does not necessitate a commitment to
naturalism or the influence of naturalism and its effects on theology.
An Introduction xvii
One common motivation in the biblical and theological literature toward

a belief in materialism as the assumed ontological stance of the interpreter is
the belief that the Scriptures yield a portrait of humans as unified, functionally
integrated agents. Pushing against the Hellenistic influence of the Patristic
and Medieval interpreters of Scripture, there has been a sense that ancient
dualisms imposed an illicit or inappropriate dualism of parts that fractured
the image of humanity rather than providing support for the unified picture
found in the Bible.14 Not uncommon to Old Testament scholarship is the
assumption that humans are functionally integrated agents representing their
creator. In fact, some Old Testament interpreters have taken this to mean that
the Old Testament authors assume a monistic anthropology.15 There are two
important items worth noting about how this reasoning has gone wrong. First,
it is important to note that while there is a common assumption that monism
is synonymous with materialism, this is just simply not true. There are other
variations of monism that fall outside of the materialist camp.16 Second, it
is worth noting that the Old Testament does not clearly yield a teaching of
monism but rather functional holism. It is important to make this distinction
because functional holism is a term representing the integrity of the human
(contra some ancient dualisms) in practice as image bearers of God, but
it does not necessitate ontological holism (i.e., monism). John Cooper has
rigorously argued in several places against the monist assumption so often
smuggled into biblical studies, and by default into theological studies.17
To date, the most substantive contributions to the Christian physicalist
literature have come from philosophers, although key figures also include
biblical and theological scholars. Nancey Murphy, herself a nonreductive
physicalist, has taken perhaps the most overtly theological approach to
Christian physicalism. In her “Human Nature: Historical, Scientific, and
Religious Issues,” Murphy argues that the history of theological anthropology
has brought us to a point of decision between nonreductive physicalism and
holistic dualism, substance dualism (which Murphy labels “radical dualism”)
being dismissed as not “compatible with Christian teaching.”18 Murphy’s
2006 work, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?, is a sustained argument
that physicalism—over against dualism—provides the best fit with Christian
commitments.19 Warren Brown, though a neuroscientist and not a theologian,
takes an approach similar to that of Murphy. Though not strictly speaking
a work of Christian physicalism, Murphy and Brown’s cowritten Did My
Neurons Make Me Do It? Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on
Moral Responsibility and Free Will makes a case for how physicalists might
preserve the notions of rationality, meaning, moral responsibility, and free
will.20 In his 2012 book, The Physical Nature of Christian Life: Neuroscience,
Psychology, and the Church (cowritten with Brad Strawn), Brown rejects
dualism (which, it is maintained, leads to Gnosticism) and reconsiders such
xviii Christian Physicalism?
theological matters as spiritual formation and the mission of the Church in

physicalist terms.21 Joel Green (a professor of New Testament studies) stands
out among biblical scholars for his attempts to defend physicalist readings
of Scripture, most notably in his Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature
of Humanity in the Bible, by claiming that the exegetical task must be car-
ried out with the neurosciences fully in view.22 Green’s “neuro-hermeneutic”
is deployed to significant theological consequence in his work, notably in
undercutting “the presumption of the centrality to biblical eschatology of a
disembodied intermediate state.”23
Among philosophers, the contributions of Lynne Rudder Baker have out-
stripped those of her fellow Christian physicalists. Beginning with her 1995
article “Need a Christian be a Mind/Body Dualist,” Baker has argued “that
what we now know about nature renders untenable the idea of a human per-
son as consisting, even in part, of an immaterial soul.”24 Defending instead
a version of the constitution view, Baker argues in Persons and Bodies: A
Constitution View that one is a human in virtue of being constituted by a
human body and one is a person in virtue (essentially) of having the capac-
ity for the first-person perspective.25 Christian physicalists tend to view the
Christian doctrine of resurrection as a test case. Baker applies her constitution
view to that doctrine in her 2001 article “Material Persons and the Doctrine of
Resurrection”26 as well as her 2007 article “Persons and the Metaphysics of
Resurrection,” wherein she argues the persistence conditions of the constitu-
tion view, according to which “sameness of pre- and postmortem person is
sameness of first-person perspective,” make constitution the most attractive
option for Christians.27 Kevin Corcoran also advocates the constitution view
in his Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alternative to the
Soul,28 and his edited 2001 volume, Soul, Body, and Survival: Essays on the
Metaphysics of Human Persons, remains among the most frequently cited
works in the literature.29
Peter van Inwagen and Trenton Merricks have made notable contributions
to the Christian physicalist literature, each endorsing the animalist view of
human persons. As early as 1978, van Inwagen (characteristically) claimed
to “have no idea” what sort of object is a “body,” arguing that upon death
God may well replace one’s corpse (or at least the “core person”) with a
simulacrum in order to preserve one for future resurrection.30 Later, in his
“Dualism and Materialism: Jerusalem and Athens?,” van Inwagen fortifies
this position.31 Offering physicalist-friendly readings of key biblical and
creedal passages, van Inwagen seeks to decouple Christians from (their tra-
ditional) commitment to dualism. Doubtlessly van Inwagen’s most momen-
tous contribution, though, is his 2007 article “A Materialist Ontology of the
Human Person,” in which he rejects property dualism.32 Trenton Merricks is
well-known for denying there are any criteria for identity over time,33 yet he
An Introduction xix
insists on the resurrection of one’s numerically identical body: “if you are not
numerically identical with a person who exists in Heaven in the distant future,
then you do not have immortality—so bodily identity is crucial to resurrec-
tion.”34 By his lights, physicalism can make the best sense of this, for “life
after death and resurrection are, for physical organisms like us, one and the
same thing.”35 Merricks’s “How to Live Forever without Saving Your Soul:
Physicalism and Immortality” focuses on the challenge(s) presented to his
view by the fact that upon death human persons cease to exist and there is a
temporal gap before their resurrection.36 Any plausible personal ontology for
Christian theology must also be coherently worked out with the essentials of
Christian doctrine. Christian physicalists must attend to the full scope of doc-
trine in order to motivate a plausible defense for their view (e.g., sin, original
sin, knowledge of God, salvation, sanctification). In what follows, the authors
have attempted to explore some of these topics with physicalism in mind. The
results are less than positive.
Despite reports to the contrary, the success of physicalism is overstated.
The preponderance of evidence from Christian sources, rather than favoring
physicalism, support some version of dualism with a view that an immaterial
part is necessary to ground central Christian teachings.
CONCLUSION
What you have in your hands is a set of critiques against physicalism, gener-
ally, and the supposed compatibility of Christianity with physicalism, spe-
cifically. The integration of Christianity with physicalism has gained some
prominence in recent years, as seen above. It is most evident in the philosoph-
ical literature, which includes the Christian philosophy of religion, but the
impact of physicalism reverberates in biblical studies and theology, in some
circles more than others. This is due in part to the overwhelming success of
the sciences and the attending belief that science sits firmly in a physicalist
worldview, where events are explicable by their underlying physical causes
and effects or that organisms find their explanation in biological evolution.
Another practical consideration is the common belief that dualism’s effect on
theology tends to bifurcate the person and denigrate the body. This is some-
thing we are loath to do, as reflected in virtually all contemporary Christian
dualist defenses of human nature.
This trend toward physicalism is unhelpful and unmotivated, in our assess-
ment. As shown here and in the chapters that follow, we are convinced that
the motivations to affirm physicalism are actually quite thin and baseless.
Christians who are committed to Nicene Catholic Christianity are nearly
compelled to believe in the doctrine of the soul, however one may work that
xx Christian Physicalism?
out (for example, as a hylomorphist, a Thomist, a Cartesian, a Berkeleyan).

Short of calling Christian materialism a heresy, it is a deviation from the
received wisdom of ecumenical Christianity. The Church has made plain the
near universal agreement that some doctrine of immateriality is central to our
confession of the anthropos.
Some Christians may not feel the compulsion to stand so close to the
received ecumenical tradition of Christianity reflected in its three expressions
(e.g., EO, RC, and Protestant Christianity). Let’s assume one’s theological
method basically reduces to biblical exegesis and philosophical reasoning
with a nod to the tradition. Even still, the present resource has something to
contribute to these Christians. There remain good biblical reasons for reject-
ing physicalism, for instance, the need to account for the self-same person
identified throughout salvation history and enduring from somatic death
into immediate somatic resurrection. Even more, there remain overwhelm-
ing philosophical reasons for rejecting physicalism on the basis that it can-
not account for the unity of consciousness (see J. P. Moreland’s chapter),
the enduring self, or the epistemology of religious experience (see Angus
Menuge’s chapter), among other theological considerations (such as the fact
of Holy Saturday and Christ’s persistence with human nature intact).
Here is a question for the reader: does even science favor physicalism? We
have suggested some reasons above that it does not. Furthermore, if one of
the hallmarks of physicalism is its underlying basis in physics, then, accord-
ing to Bruce Gordon, physicalists don’t even have physics on their side. If he
is right, then physicalists lack any ground on which to stand. In the end, one
may conclude that there are no good reasons to affirm physicalism. This is
our conclusion. What is yours?
NOTES
1. J. P. Moreland helpfully uses this term to describe the physicalism movement

in his, The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism
(London: SCM Press, 2009).
2. For our purposes here, we use the terms “physicalism” and “materialism”
interchangeably. This usage is not uncommon in the contemporary philosophy of
mind literature. We recognize that some might want to distinguish the two terms.
For example, if one is a Berkeleyan idealist, then one might refer to the physical as
phenomenological products of the mind, yet use the term materialism to reference
physical substantial ontology.
3. Michael Welker, The Depth of the Human Person: A Multidisciplinary
Approach (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014). In this multiauthored and multidis-
ciplinary work, the authors collectively represent some of the trends toward some
variant of monism, or the move to what might be considered a pluralist ontology.
However, the authors, collectively, are quite disparaging of both reductive materialism
or substantial dualisms. Otherwise, an excellent collection of essays.
An Introduction xxi
4. See Matthew Levering, Jesus and the Demise of Death: Resurrection, Afterlife,
and the Fate of the Christian (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012), 15–27. In
fact, the separation of body and soul has been the dominant theological interpretation
throughout Church history. This is reflected, for example, in the Catechism of the
Catholic Church (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994). The argument may be that this
is simply reflective of the Roman Catholic teaching, but it is important to note that
EOs do not depart from this, as shown by Levering, and Reformed Christians did not
often depart from RC on these standard interpretations of Scripture.
5. See Stephen Yates, Between Death and Resurrection: A Critical Response to
Recent Catholic Debate Concerning the Intermediate State (New York: Bloomsbury,
2017). In this impressive study in analytic theology, Stephen Yates critically assesses
the recent moves away from what is considered a dogmatic teaching of Roman
Catholicism in the disembodied intermediate state to the affirmation of “immediate
resurrection” view of the afterlife. He notes the correlation between the assumption
of materialism and/or monism and the assumption of the immediate resurrection posi-
tion and the resultant rejection of both disembodied intermediate state view with the
rejection of the doctrine of the soul. He finds these moves problematic on dogmatic,
theological, and biblical grounds and seeks to remotivate a case for the traditional
dogmatic view of the soul’s persistence disembodied during the intermediate state
upon somatic death to somatic resurrection. While Yates is focused on contemporary
Roman Catholic theology, his findings are relevant both to Eastern Orthodoxy and
Reformed Christianity because of the emphasis on traditional theological teaching,
which is collectively agreed upon in all three traditions. He also notes some of the
trends reflected in Reformed Christianity toward monism and away from dualism.
6. See John Cooper, “Scripture and Philosophy on the Unity of Body and Soul,”
in The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, eds. Joshua R.
Farris and Charles Taliaferro (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2015), 39.
7. See N. T. Wright, “Mind, Spirit, Soul and Body: All for One and One for All,
Reflections on Paul’s Anthropology in his Complex Contexts,” http://ntwrightpage.
com/2016/07/12/mind-spirit-soul-and-body/ [accessed on August 31, 2017].
8. For a positive defense and construction of substance dualism generally and
Cartesianism, specifically, see Joshua R. Farris, The Soul of Theological Anthropol-
ogy: A Cartesian Exploration (New York: Routledge, 2017). Farris advances the first
constructive theological account of Cartesianism in the literature that is motivated by
Scripture, dogma, and philosophical considerations.
9. “Scripture and Philosophy on the Unity of Body and Soul,” 37. John Cooper
carefully pushes this point.
10. See for example Malcolm Jeeves, ed., From Cells to Souls and Beyond: Chang-
ing Portraits of Human Nature (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004). Taking their
cues from what is considered the scientific consensus about the overwhelming shift
toward a neurological and biological basis for human nature, the authors affirm either
nonreductive physicalism or dual-aspectism. The doctrine of the soul or some version
of substantial dualism is largely rejected (see page xii).
11. Susan A. Ross, Anthropology, Engaging Theology: Catholic Perspectives
(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 145. Also see Hans Schwarz, The Human
Being: A Theological Anthropology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013), 127. Theo-
logian Hans Schwarz recognizes the common views of the scientific community and
xxii Christian Physicalism?
how that has influenced theological construction. However, he does not see this as
yielding materialism or monism. He does not succumb to the pressures of the scientific
community, but, instead, is open to some variant of dualism or pluralism. Many have,
rather than succumb to the pressure, turned to highlight a relational (albeit passive)
ontology as the way to make sense of Scripture in light of the sciences. For one such
example, see Ingolf U. Dalferth’s excellent work, Creatures of Possibility: The Theo-
logical Basis of Freedom (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016), 15, 20–21, 52.
This move, we believe, misses the necessity of the substantial ground for relations.
12. See Aku Visla, “Theological Anthropology and the Cognitive Sciences,” in
The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, 70.
13. See Daniel N. Robinson, “Theological Anthropology and the Brain Sciences,”
in The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, 79. Robinson,
himself, affirms some form of substance dualism, with its attending Cartesian intu-
itions. However, here, he is pushing against a common stance often held in the scien-
tific community concerning the brain sciences, and arguing for the need of something
that is not housed in the brain itself.
14. See Gerd Theissen, “Sarx, Soma, and the Transformative Pneuma: Personal
Identity Endangered and Regained in Pauline Anthropology,” in The Depth of the
Human Person, 166–167. He explicitly points out holistic anthropology in Paul’s
anthropological view and rejects dualism as out of bounds in Paul’s texts.
15. See Bruce Waltke, Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
2007), 209–232. Waltke represents a move wherein some recognize the emphasis of
holism in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament some interpreters recognize
the need for a soul in Paul’s anthropology (see 2 Corinthians 5). There are different
ways of making this move. One could understand an actual change that occurs in the
Scriptures, according to progressive revelation. Wherein the Old Testament view is
just different from the New Testament view. Alternatively, one might seek to har-
monize the views by way of highlighting not monism but holism as the integrative
motif. Also, one could argue that the Old Testament does not yield a clear teaching
on anthropology, at least not definitively. Joel Green makes a distinct, but impor-
tant argument, that the Bible in no way gives us a need to affirm the soul. See Joel
Green, “Why the Imago Dei Should Not Be Identified with the Soul,” in The Ashgate
Research Companion to Theological Anthropology.
16. We have in mind panpsychism generally speaking. We also have in mind a
more specified version of panpsychism, namely, Russellian monism, advanced by the
famous atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell.
17. See John Cooper, Body, Soul and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and
the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), xxi–xxviii.
18. Nancey Murphy, “Human Nature: Historical, Scientific, and Religious Issues,”
in Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human
Nature, eds. Warren S. Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Malony (Minneapo-
lis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), 25.
19. Nancey Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2006).
20. Nancey Murphy and Warren. S. Brown, Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?
Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free
Will (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
An Introduction xxiii
21. Warren S. Brown and Brad D. Strawn, The Physical Nature of Christian Life:
Neuroscience, Psychology, and the Church (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
22. Joel B. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the
Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008). See also his “‘Bodies—That Is,
Human Lives’: A Re-Examination of Human Nature in the Bible,” in Whatever Hap-
pened to the Soul?
23. Joel B. Green, “Eschatology and the Nature of Humans: A Reconsideration
of Pertinent Biblical Evidence,” Science & Christian Belief 14, no. 1 (2002): 50. See
also Green’s framing of the debate over the ontology of human persons in his “Body
and Soul, Mind and Brain: Critical Issues,” in In Search of the Soul: Four Views of the
Mind-Body Problem, eds. Joel B. Green and Stuart L. Palmer (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2005).
24. Lynne Rudder Baker, “Need a Christian be a Mind/Body Dualist?” Faith and
Philosophy 12, no. 4 (1995): 502.
25. Lynne Rudder Baker, Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2000). Baker summarizes her view and addresses some
objections in “Materialism with a Human Face,” in Soul, Body, and Survival, ed.
Kevin Corcoran (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press) as well as in “Christian Mate-
rialism in a Scientific Age,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 70, no.
1 (2011): 47–59.
26. Lynne Rudder Baker, “Material Persons and the Doctrine of Resurrection,”
Faith and Philosophy 18, no. 2 (2001): 151–167.
27. Lynne Rudder Baker, “Persons and the Metaphysics of Resurrection,” Reli-
gious Studies 43, no. 3 (2007): 333–348. Baker argues strenuously that the first-
person perspective cannot be accounted for by naturalism in Naturalism and the
First-Person Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
28. Kevin Corcoran, Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alterna-
tive to the Soul (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006).
29. Kevin Corcoran, ed., Soul, Body, and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of
Human Persons (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
30. Peter van Inwagen, “The Possibility of Resurrection,” International Journal
for Philosophy of Religion 9, no. 2 (1978): 114–121.
31. Peter van Inwagen, “Dualism and Materialism: Jerusalem and Athens?” Faith
and Philosophy 12, no. 4 (1995): 475–488.
32. Peter van Inwagen, “A Materialist Ontology of the Human Person,” in Persons:
Human and Divine, eds. Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman (Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 2007), 213–215.
33. Trenton Merricks, “There are no Criteria for Identity over Time,” Noûs 32
(1998): 106–124.
34. Trenton Merricks, “The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting,”
in Reason for the Hope Within, ed. Michael J. Murray (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans
1999), 268.
35. Merricks, “The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting,” 283.
36. Trenton Merricks, “How to Live Forever without Saving Your Soul: Physical-
ism and Immortality,” in Soul, Body, and Survival, ed. Corcoran.
Chapter 1
The Incorporeality of the

Soul in Patristic Thought
Paul L. Gavrilyuk
Most premodern thinkers, both philosophers and theologians, could wonder

what a soul was and how it was different from a body, but they did not doubt
the soul’s existence. In contrast, it is increasingly common in contemporary
western scholarship to deny the existence of the soul and to assume that
substance dualism has been definitively refuted. The thinkers of materialist
persuasion commonly present caricatures of premodern views of the soul as
convenient foils. Consider, for example, the following provocative statement
by Daniel Dennett:
One widespread tradition has it that we human beings are responsible agents,
captains of our fate, because we really are souls, immaterial and immortal
clumps of Godstuff that inhabit and control our material bodies rather like spec-
tral puppeteers. It is our souls that are the source of meaning, and the locus of
all our suffering, our joy, our glory and shame. But this idea of immaterial souls,
capable of defying the laws of physics, has outlived its credibility thanks to the
advance of the natural sciences.1
Dennett’s “spectral puppeteer” is a variation on Gilbert Ryle’s descrip-

tion of “Descartes’ dream” as the “ghost-in-the-machine.”2 Such cari-
catures produce a false impression that all dualisms—Platonic, Gnostic,
Cartesian, early Christian, medieval, and so on—are equally and obviously
inadequate.
Some Christian philosophers have met this challenge by accommodat-
ing the metaphysics of personhood to a physicalist claim that “we are our
bodies—there is no additional metaphysical element such as a mind or soul
or spirit.”3 Such accommodation may take different forms, including “non-
reductive physicalism,” which denies dualism and asserts that consciousness
1
2 Paul L. Gavrilyuk
and mental states are causally connected to matter, while trying to avoid the
atheist and deterministic implications of materialism.4
In addition to philosophers, some leading twentieth-century theologians
and biblical scholars have come to contrast the biblical view of humanity
with Greek philosophical anthropology. This contrast has been drawn in
stark terms by such an eminent authority as Karl Barth: “The Greek concep-
tion of the soul as a second and higher ‘part,’ as an imperishable, if possible
preexistent, and in any case immortal spiritual substance of human reality,
contrasted with the body as its lower and mortal part—the conception of the
soul as a captive in the prison of its body, is quite unbiblical.”5 The Swiss
theologian protests most strongly against the “abstract dualistic conception”
of the “Greek picture of man” and issues the following verdict:
In general, the character and result of this anthropology are marked by a sepa-
ration of the soul over the body, a humiliation of the body under the soul, in
which both really become not merely abstractions but in fact two “co-existing”
figments—a picture in which probably no real man ever recognized himself, and
with which one cannot possibly do justice to the biblical view and concept of
man. It was disastrous that this picture of man could assert and maintain itself
for so long as the Christian picture. We must earnestly protest that this is not
the Christian picture.6
Barth’s categorical judgment was generally shared by his contemporaries,

including such an influential biblical scholar as Oscar Cullman. According
to Cullman, “the Jewish and Christian interpretation of creation excludes
the whole Greek dualism of body and soul.”7 This sharp dichotomy between
the “Christian interpretation of creation” and “Greek dualism” is commonly
based on the alleged contrast between the pagan Greek belief in the immor-
tality of the soul and the Christian teaching concerning the resurrection of
the dead. While Cullman’s view has been nuanced in various ways, the
general trajectory of his thought remains influential in contemporary biblical
scholarship.8
This chapter offers an account of the Late Antique and early Christian
anthropologies that will challenge a facile dichotomy between the “Christian
interpretation of creation” and “Greek dualism.” The immediate problem
with using the expression “Greek dualism” is a failure to differentiate with
sufficient clarity between ontological dualism postulating two independent
sources of good and evil, and anthropological dualism, which takes human
beings to be soul-body composites. Those scholars who intend only the
anthropological application of “Greek dualism” often unintentionally evoke
the ontological dualism, too. This is a serious problem, as most Christian
authors who accepted soul-body dichotomy at the same time rejected ontolog-
ical dualism. Moreover, later Platonists, who were anthropological dualists,
The Incorporeality of the Soul in Patristic Thought 3
were also quite critical of ontological dualism of the kind propounded by

the Gnostics. Hence, the presumption that both dualisms usually appear in
tandem is a serious confusion of terms that clouds the study of late antiquity.
I will further problematize the concept of anthropological dualism by dem-
onstrating that there was no consensus among ancient Greek and Hellenistic
philosophical schools on the metaphysics of personhood. I will subsequently
show that a widespread view that early Christian theologians uncritically
accepted Platonic anthropological dualism misrepresents the tradition. In
fact, the nature of the soul remained a contested issue among Christian theo-
logians well into the fifth century and beyond. As I will illustrate by consider-
ing the work of Origen of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine of
Hippo, early Christian thinkers had general philosophical as well as particular
theological reasons for holding that the soul was irreducibly immaterial.
THE SOUL IN GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
Ancient Greek thought exhibits a broad range of opinion regarding the nature
and powers of the soul (ψυχή). In Homer, the psyche is associated with
breath, which leaves the body at death.9 Upon separating from the body, the
psyche continues to lead a shadowlike existence in the underworld (Hades)
with some of its powers diminished. Since the living body moves and the
dead body is motionless, the psyche is also responsible for movement. Some
ancient Greeks went so far as to attribute the psyche to everything that moves
or is movable, including stars, rivers, and stones.10 The view that all things are
living or ensouled (ἔμψυχος) is commonly designated as “vitalism,” or more
precisely, “panpsychism.” Prephilosophical vitalism assumed that the soul
was a body of a special kind and had conceptual difficulties with articulating
incorporeality (ἀσωματία, τὸ ἀσωματὸν).
In the Greek culture, the archaic and prephilosophical views of psyche
continued to circulate side by side with the later philosophical attempts to
define the nature and powers of the psyche more precisely. In On the Soul,
Aristotle critically sifts through the opinions of his philosophical predeces-
sors before carving out his own position. The vast majority of the pre-Platonic
thinkers conceived of the soul in physical terms: Hippo associated the psyche
with water and seed, Critias with blood, and Diogenes with air.11 According
to Aristotle, the interesting thing about air is that it “seems to be ἀσώματοσ,”
yet on closer inspection it is not. Still, air is “thinner and more incorporeal
than water,” which is to say that it is made of a less dense substance.12 In
non-Christian Greek sources, the term ἀσώματοσ is at times used loosely as
a relative concept denoting a substance that is more refined than the corporeal
substance to which it is compared. As discussed later in this chapter, the idea
4 Paul L. Gavrilyuk
of relative incorporeality of the soul in relation to the body is not foreign to

patristic thought, beginning with Irenaeus of Lyons.
Aristotle also noted that the psyche was often associated with such func-
tions as movement, sensation, affectivity, imagination, and thinking.13
Pythagoras ascribed the psyche to humans and animals, viewing it as a cen-
ter of sensations, desires, and emotions, but not of thoughts. He located the
psyche in the heart, and taught that it migrated from body to body, and in this
sense was deathless (ἀθάνατοσ). While professing the psyche’s immortality,
Pythagoras associated the soul with the “particles in the air,” which would
seem to entail that he agreed with the other pre-Socratics that the soul was
corporeal.14
In contrast to Pythagoras, Democritus identified the psyche with the mind
(νοῦσ), holding that it was made of fire or heat and consisted of atoms. Hav-
ing discussed Democritus’s atomism and its limitations, Aristotle makes the
following foundational observation:
As to the nature and number of the first principles opinions differ. The difference
is greatest between those who regard them as corporeal and those who regard
them as incorporeal (οἱ σωματικὰς ποιοῦντες τοῖς ἀσωμάτους), and from both
dissent those who make a blend and draw their principles from both sources.
The number of principles is also in dispute; some admit one only, others assert
several. There is a consequent diversity in their several accounts of soul.15
Aristotle postulates a correspondence between the first principles of a given

philosophical system and the nature of the soul, that is, between ontology and
psychology. For example, it was natural for an atomist, such as Democritus,
to hold that the soul consists of atoms. The clearest statement that the soul is
corporeal comes from Epicurus:
The psyche is a fine-structured body diffused through the whole aggregate, most
strongly resembling wind with a certain blending of heat, and resembling wind
in some respects but heat in others. But there is that part which differs greatly
also from wind and heat themselves in its fitness of structure, a fact which makes
it the more liable to co-affection with the rest of the aggregate.16
According to Epicurus, the soul does not survive the dissolution of the body.
Epicurean materialism is the closest ancient Greek analogy to contemporary
reductive physicalism, that is, the view that only bodies exist and that all
mental properties are reducible to underlying physical properties.
Similar to the Epicureans, the Stoics understood the psyche to be corporeal.
This view followed from their understanding of God as a both corporeal and
intelligent spirit (πνεῦμα) that suffuses and animates the material universe.
However, Stoic pantheistic corporealism was not as straightforwardly reduc-

tionist as Epicurean atomism. According to A. A. Long, “the Stoic God is not
a body primarily and a mind secondarily. It is his nature to be an intelligent
body.”17 Just what this meant the Stoics did not always make clear, for they
denied the existence of incorporeal substances. On their account, the soul,
being corporeal, does not survive for long after the dissolution of the body.
Corporealism was also a broadly shared assumption of ancient Greek and
Hellenistic medicine.
It seems that prior to Plato, the concept of incorporeality (τὸ ἀσωματὸν)
remained foreign to Greek philosophers.18 In Sophist 246a-b, Plato announces
a break with the preceding philosophical tradition, especially with the ancient
proponents of reductive physicalism:
Some of them drag down everything from heaven and the invisible to earth,
actually grasping rocks and trees with their hands; for they lay their hands on
all such things and maintain stoutly that that alone exists which can be touched
and handled; for they define existence and body, or matter, as identical, and
if anyone says that anything else, which has no body, exists (μὴ σῶμα ἔχον
εἶναι), they despise him utterly, and will not listen to any other theory than their
own. . . .
Therefore those who contend against them defend themselves very cautiously
with weapons derived from the invisible world above, maintaining forcibly that
real existence consists of certain ideas which are only conceived by the mind
and have no body.19
It is possible that the term ἀσώματοσ was of Plato’s coinage.20 Plato’s con-
joining of intelligible entities (νοητὰ) with incorporeal entities (ἀσώματα)
was a conceptual and metaphysical breakthrough. If prior to Plato the differ-
ence between soul and body seems to have been that of rarer versus denser
corporeality, Plato understands the difference to be qualitative: the mental
power of the soul is incorporeal.21 The incorporeal soul is simple and self-
moving and, therefore, immortal by nature.22 These teachings were defended
by later Platonists and their followers.
Even a brief overview of the Greek understandings of the nature of the soul
demonstrates with a great degree of historical probability that a significant
number of philosophers favored a position that the soul was in some sense
corporeal, although they differed widely with regard to how the soul’s nature
was to be understood and its powers described. In the philosophical market of
ideas, Platonic dualism of the incorporeal soul joined to the body represented
a departure from this widespread view, not a standard position. Therefore, it
is quite inaccurate and misleading to imagine, as Oscar Cullman does, early
Christian theologians as confronting “Greek dualism” tout court, since no
6 Paul L. Gavrilyuk
such monolithic philosophical view was on offer in late antiquity. In fact, a

prevailing position was not dualism of any sort, but rather different versions
of corporealism and materialism, from lingering traditional folk beliefs about
soul-breath to more refined philosophical views, especially those associated
with Hellenistic and Roman Stoicism. While we do not know the particulars
of the Apostle Paul’s debate with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in the
Areopagus, the resurrection of the dead would have been an entirely plausible
target of philosophical “scoffing” and questioning (Acts 17:18, 32).
Early patristic authors were aware of the wide discrepancy of philosophi-
cal opinions on the matter of the soul’s nature and its powers.23 To represent
early Christian theologians as being mindlessly swayed by “Greek dualism”
is to ignore much of the available evidence. In fact, as will be shown later,
a view that the soul possesses some kind of corporeality continued to have
supporters from the second century to the fifth century. The teaching that the
soul was incorporeal, which gradually gained broad acceptance in the church,
was as much a result of internal debates among Christian theologians as a
product of selective repurposing of valid Platonic insights with considerable
metaphysical modifications.
PATRISTIC AUTHORS BEFORE ORIGEN
Origen of Alexandria considers the question of the incorporeality of God

and the soul repeatedly in his extant writings. In the preface to his magnum
opus On First Principles, he registers the fact that in the first part of the third
century the matter was far from settled: “The term ἀσώματον, that is, incor-
poreal, is unused and unknown, not only in many other writings but also in
our scriptures.”24 Having set aside an imprecise use of ἀσώματον in the sense
of being “thin like air,” Origen states,
We shall inquire whether the actual thing which Greek philosophers call
ἀσώματον or incorporeal is found in the holy scriptures under another name.
We must also seek to discover how God himself is to be conceived, whether as
corporeal and fashioned in some shape, or as being of a different nature from
bodies, a point which is not clearly set forth in the teaching. The same inquiry
must be made in regard to Christ and the Holy Spirit, and indeed in regard to
every soul and every rational nature also.25
The Alexandrian theologian acknowledges that in the absence of an explicit

scriptural teaching, the matter of God’s and the soul’s (in)corporeality is
fraught with difficulties and is bound to cause controversy. If we are to fol-
low Aristotle’s dictum that the account of the nature of the psyche must fol-
low the account of the investigation of the first principles, we could treat the
conjunction of propositions about the (in)corporeality of God and of the soul

as two parts of one metaphysical problem. Such a conjunction generates four
logically possible conclusions:
1. God is corporeal, the soul is incorporeal.

2. Both God and the soul are corporeal.
3. God is incorporeal, the soul is corporeal.
4. Both God and the soul are incorporeal.
We may set aside the first proposition as something no one was prepared to
bet any metaphysical money on. The second proposition was held by some
of Origen’s contemporaries and, in a more philosophically rigorous way, was
defended by Tertullian. As we shall see, the third proposition held a certain
attraction for Origen and other early patristic authors. In the end, the fourth
proposition came to be well-established in patristic theology for reasons
that we shall explore more closely by considering the thought of Gregory of
Nyssa and Augustine.
The second proposition, that God and the soul are corporeal, found sup-
porters among the uneducated as well as the philosophically trained. In Ori-
gen’s time, there were simple believers in Alexandria, who took the biblical
references to divine eyes, hands, feet, bowels, and so on, literally, reaching
the conclusion that God has a body. Such a conclusion was unsurprising in
a polytheistic milieu in which gods were expected to be anthropomorphic.
Setting aside anthropomorphic conceptions of God, Tertullian offers a
more philosophically refined defense of the second proposition. In order to
combat the Docetic rejection of the reality of Christ’s flesh, Tertullian leans
on Stoic corporealism, which postulates that all beings, including God and
the soul, are in some sense corporeal. He states his fundamental metaphysical
presupposition as follows: “Everything that exists is a body of some kind or
another. Nothing is incorporeal except what does not exist.”26
Tertullian treats the nature of the soul more extensively in his On the Soul,
the first systematic Christian presentation of the subject. After noting dis-
agreement among the philosophers on the issue of the soul’s corporeality and
criticizing the Platonists with considerable rhetorical flair, Tertullian draws
on the following three arguments of the Stoics in support of the soul’s corpo-
reality: (1) the spirit or soul that leaves the body at death must be corporeal in
order to make a difference to the body’s corporeal state; (2) the fact that chil-
dren inherit not only bodily traits but also character traits from their parents
indicates that this resemblance is transmitted from body to body and from
soul to soul in a corporeal fashion; (3) the soul-body interaction or “sympa-
thy” is only possible on the assumption that the soul has a nature akin to the
body, but there is nothing in common between the corporeal and incorporeal
8 Paul L. Gavrilyuk
nature.27 Tertullian subsequently proceeds to dismantle the arguments of the

Platonists for the soul’s incorporeality. What is important to emphasize is
that Tertullian does not see himself as falling into or being bound by “Greek
dualism,” because such a view was by no means a default option either in
philosophical circles or in a wider culture. On the contrary, he knows that
the majority opinion favors corporealism and supports it by rehearsing select
Stoic arguments.
In addition, Tertullian adduces scriptural evidence in support of his view.
He observes that the description of the eschatological state in the story of
the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 19:16–31 includes physical torments, such
as fire and thirst, implying embodiment.28 Tertullian’s central proof-text is
Gen 2:7: “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (LXX: πνοὴν ζωῆς) and the man
became a living being (LXX: ἐγένετο ὁ ἆνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν).” The
African theologian interprets this passage to mean that the soul was formed
“by the breathing of God and not out of matter,” and that the soul has an ori-
gin: it is made by God.29 Tertullian contrasts his view with the Platonic tenet
that the soul is unborn or unmade. According to Tertullian, God is a unique
uncreated corporeal spirit who forms the corporeal soul by spiration, out of
his breath. The soul is a simple corporeal spirit that is different in kind from
God’s corporeal spirit, just as it is different in kind from the bodies that are
not souls. Whatever one makes of Tertullian’s metaphysical explorations, it
is not an obvious ally of contemporary physicalism, whether overtly materi-
alist and atheist, or emergentist. This is primarily because Tertullian shares
the fundamental assumption of the second-century apologists that God is the
creator of everything, including matter, and therefore transcends matter.
It was the ontological distinction between the uncreated God and creation
that drove the early Christian understanding of God as immaterial. For exam-
ple, the second-century apologist Tatian wrote, “God is spirit. He does not
extend through matter, but is the author of material spirits and of the figures
in matter. He is invisible and intangible.”30 Addressing an imaginary audience
of Greek philosophers more directly, Tatian adds, “One of you asserts that
God is body, but I assert that he is without body.”31 According to Tatian, God
is an uncreated incorporeal spirit, who is not limited by space or matter. God
is the creator of everything in the world, including matter and material spirits.
Tatian’s position appears to be close to the third view, namely that while God
is incorporeal, the soul and spirit are corporeal.
This seems to have been the view of Justin Martyr, as well. In his Dialogue
with Trypho, Justin narrates his spiritual pilgrimage from one philosophical
school to another, culminating in a period of adherence to Platonism before
his eventual conversion to Christianity. Justin understands the later Platonists
to be teaching that the soul is unbegotten, immortal, and immaterial because
it is a part of the divine mind.32 In contrast to Platonism, Christianity teaches

that God is the creator of everything, including the soul. It follows that the
soul is created, has a beginning in time, depends on God, and has life by
participation in the divine life, not by nature.33 This foundational difference
between Christian and Platonist accounts of the soul, first recorded by Justin,
would become commonplace in patristic literature.
More peculiar to Justin is his understanding, possibly influenced by Sto-
icism, that immaterial entities are devoid of sensation. If the soul were imma-
terial, reasons Justin, it would not be susceptible to divine punishment after
death. Such a conclusion goes against the Christian teaching concerning the
last things. While Justin does not deny explicitly that the soul is immaterial,
the logic of his argument would seem to favor the soul’s corporeality over
incorporeality.
Irenaeus of Lyons is also somewhat ambiguous on the subject of the soul’s
(in)corporeality. In Against Heresies, he claims that “souls are incorporeal
when put in comparison with mortal bodies (incorporales animae, quantum
ad comparationem mortalium corporum); for God breathed into the face
of man the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Now the breath of
life is an incorporeal thing. And certainly they cannot maintain that the very
breath of life is mortal.”34 Irenaeus could be interpreted as claiming that both
the divine breath of Genesis 2:7 and the soul are incorporeal, with the differ-
ence that the soul’s existence and all of its properties, including immortality
and incorporeality, depend on God. Alternatively, he could be interpreted
as claiming that the soul is incorporeal relative to the “mortal body,” which
would not exclude a possibility that the soul is a body of a different, more
refined sort. In other words, Irenaeus could follow earlier thinkers in under-
standing corporeality and incorporeality not as two discrete states, but as
properties that admit of degrees. As we are about to see, such an understand-
ing of incorporeality was present in Origen’s thought as well.
ORIGEN OF ALEXANDRIA
“We have learned from the holy Scripture that the human being is a com-
posite,” observes Origen, musing over 1 Thessalonians 5:23. “May your
spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ.”35 Origen views human nature as a hierarchical system,
in which the spirit corresponds to the highest aspect, the soul corresponds
to the intermediate aspect, and the flesh corresponds to the lowest aspect of
the self. As an intermediate entity, the soul is capable of aligning itself either
with the higher or with the lower aspects of the self. Origen conceives of the
soul as a dynamic entity, which becomes mind when it draws closer to God,
10 Paul L. Gavrilyuk
and becomes dull-witted and entangled with the body when its desire for
God cools.36 Under the influence of Middle Platonism, Origen hypothesized
that the souls preexisted their embodied state and were assigned to bodies
according to the degree of their voluntary separation from God; he even
entertained the possibility of transmigration. He emphasized the speculative
and exploratory character of his views and did not expect them to be accepted
as authoritative Christian teaching. More generally, he conceded that “the
subject of the soul is a wide one, and hard to be unraveled, and it has to be
picked out of scattered expressions of Scripture.”37
Concerning the nature of the soul and its relation to the body, Origen
maintains: “All souls and all rational natures, whether holy or wicked, were
made or created. All these are incorporeal with respect of their proper nature,
but though incorporeal they were nevertheless made.”38 By insisting that the
soul is created, Origen clearly differentiates his view concerning the nature
of the soul from that of the Platonists, who taught that the soul’s incorporeal-
ity implied it was by nature eternal and divine. As far as the soul’s mode of
existence is concerned, Origen further specified that “the soul, which in its
own nature is incorporeal and invisible, is in any material place, it requires a
body suited to the nature of that environment.”39 While immaterial by nature,
the soul owes its spatial location and the visible manifestation of its agency
to bodies of different kinds.
More problematically, Origen also repeatedly asserts that incorporeality in
the strictest sense belongs to God alone. For example, in a chapter preceding
the earlier assertion about the incorporeality of the soul’s “proper nature,”
he writes, “We believe that to exist without material substance and apart
from any association with a bodily element is a thing that belongs only to the
nature of God, that is, of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” He later
repeats that “life without a body is found in the Trinity alone.”40 For Origen,
this assertion served as a safeguard against both the anthropomorphism of
simple believers and the philosophical corporealism of the Stoics, which
influenced such early Christian theologians as Tertullian.41
Origen’s exposition is marked by a tension between the assertion that all
rational beings are incorporeal in their “proper nature,” and the assertion that
incorporeality is an exclusively divine property. One possible way of dealing
with this tension is to question the reliability of Rufinus’s translation. While
Rufinus’s tampering with On First Principles cannot be ruled out, in this
particular case his theological motivation for reserving incorporeality for God
alone would remain inexplicable in the context of the late fourth century. If
we accept Rufinus’s translation as a more or less faithful rendering of Origen,
then Origen might be interpreted as claiming that while God is incorporeal
in the sense of not being limited by either body or anything else, the soul
is incorporeal, but its existence is marked by its association with the body.
As Brian Daley explains, Origen “shared the Platonic notion that every finite
intellectual being needs to make use of some kind of body as the ‘vehicle’
(ὂχημα) or instrument of its motion and activity, even though its own nature
is incorporeal.”42 This interpretation has the distinct advantage of relieving
the tension between the claim that incorporeality uniquely distinguishes God
and at the same time characterizes the soul’s proper nature.
While Origen does incorporate some Platonic elements into his system,
he also departs from Platonism when he denies that the soul is divine and
asserts, following an already established tradition, the soul’s created nature.
For him, the soul is a substance “intermediate between God and the flesh”43
and a “medium between the weak flesh and the willing spirit.”44 When the
soul’s cognitive powers are directed to embodied things, its association with
the body becomes stronger; when its cognitive powers are directed toward
the divine reality, its rational and incorporeal nature becomes more fully
manifest. When the soul’s love for God cools, it draws away from God and
as a result becomes less spiritual and more preoccupied with the body. Con-
versely, when the soul draws near to God, it becomes progressively more
spiritual and rational.45
Origen is the first Christian theologian to offer both generally philosophical
and specifically theological reasons for the soul’s incorporeal element. Gen-
eral philosophical reasons are marshaled in the form of rhetorical questions
in the first chapter of On First Principles, indicating the overall importance
of the subject to Origen’s theological system:
If there are any who consider the mind itself and the soul to be a body,
I should like them to tell me how it can take in reasons and arguments relating to
questions of great importance, full of difficulty and subtlety. Whence comes it
that the power of memory, the contemplation of invisible things, yes, and the
perception of incorporeal things reside in a body? How does a bodily nature
investigate the teachings of the arts and the meanings and reasons of things?
And divine doctrines, which are obviously incorporeal, how can it discern and
understand them?46
According to Origen, the powers of the mind and the rational powers of the
soul cannot be corporeal because they operate on incorporeal entities, such as
memories, abstract concepts, causal explanations, theological truths, and so
on. That which is capable of handling incorporeal entities cannot be purely
corporeal.
Origen subsequently argues that just as the bodily senses operate on the
properties of material things, such as color, shape, size, and smell, so the
mind operates on immaterial objects, such as abstract concepts, reasons, and
ideas about God. “To see and to be seen,” says Origen, “is a property of bod-
ies; to know and to be known is an attribute of intellectual existence.”47 It is
not sufficient for the mind to be an accident or epiphenomenon of the body,

because the mind has its distinct incorporeal sphere of operation.
For Origen, this general philosophical argument also has a more specific
theological implication. Since God is incorporeal, “there is a certain affinity
between the mind and God, of whom the mind is an intellectual image, and
that by reason of this fact the mind, especially if it is purified and separated
from bodily matter, is able to have some perception of the divine nature.”48
Unlike the Platonists, Origen did not hold that the mind was divine by nature.
His point is rather that the mind or rational soul must be sufficiently like God
in order to be able to have some understanding of God, for like is known by
like.
Origen speculates that since God is immaterial, “in creation, therefore,
the human being first created was the one in the image (Gen. 1:26) in whom
is nothing material. For what is made in the image is not made from mat-
ter.”49 According to Origen, the first two chapters of Genesis teach about
two stages in the creation of humanity: Genesis 1:26 refers to the creation
of the incorporeal “inner man,” capable of communicating with the incor-
poreal God; Genesis 2:7 refers to the formation of the “outer man,” who is
embodied, illustrated by God’s “taking dust from the ground.” For Origen,
only the Son of God, the eternal Logos, is the “image of the invisible God”
(Col. 1:15), whereas humans are made “in the image” (Gen. 1:26), with the
preposition “in” marking their ontological difference from God.50 The aspect
of the human being that is made in the image of God is the rational soul in its
original purity and alignment with God’s Spirit:
[T]hat which is made in the image of God is to be understood of the inward man,
as we call it, which is renewed and has the power to be formed in the image of
the Creator, when a man becomes perfect as his heavenly Father is perfect, and
when he hears “Be holy because I the Lord your God am holy,” and when he
learns the saying “Become imitators of God” and assumes into his own virtuous
soul the characteristics of God. Then also the body of the man who has assumed
the characteristics of God, in that part which is made in the image of God, is
a temple, since he possesses a soul of this character and has God in his soul
because of that which is in His image.51
Origen understands the spiritual condition of being “in the image” as dynamic
and contingent on the soul’s obedience to the divine commandments. When
the soul is voluntarily aligned with the spirit of God, its body becomes instru-
mental in the process. When, on the contrary, the soul chooses to draw away
from God, it no longer fully functions as that which is made “in the image,”
a condition that may even result in death.
In Dialogue with Heraclides, when challenged to answer the question of
whether the soul is immortal, Origen replies by distinguishing three kinds of
death of the soul: “death to sin” (Rom. 6:10), “death to God” (cf. Ezek. 18:4),
and physical death as a separation from the body. Since souls survive physical
death, they are “immortal” in the sense of enduring after the decomposition
of the body and being subject to divine judgment. The soul can be subject
to the spiritual death to God only to the extent that it sins. As for the “death
to sin,” it is a state in which the soul “becomes confirmed in blessedness so
that it is inaccessible to death, in possessing eternal life it is no longer mortal
but has become, according to this meaning too, immortal.”52 Although God
“alone has immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16) by nature, humans may become free
participants in God’s eternal life. Origen consistently holds that the soul’s
Godlike properties, such as incorporeality and immortality, depend upon its
orientation toward God. In the resurrected state, souls are likely to be joined
to ethereal bodies of “heavenly purity and clearness,” although it is also pos-
sible, speculates Origen, that souls will exist in a bodiless state.53
In conclusion, it is clear that Origen does not espouse “Greek dualism”
tout court. He rejects Stoic corporealism for philosophical reasons and the
Platonic view of the soul as divine for theological reasons. His partial and
critical adoption of certain elements of Platonist psychology is controlled by
the fundamental distinction of early Christian theology between the uncre-
ated and incorporeal God and everything else in creation. Origen’s position is
closer to the fourth conjunction, that both God and soul (in its proper nature
or highest state) are incorporeal, than to the third conjunction, that God is
incorporeal while the soul is not. It must be emphasized that the Alexandrian
theologian understands the soul as a dynamic medium between the invisible,
intelligible, and incorporeal realm of the spirit and the visible, sensible, and
corporeal realm of the flesh. The individual soul’s share of incorporeality
depends upon its closeness to God.
GREGORY OF NYSSA
Origen’s teachings concerning the nature of God and the soul were widely
circulated and debated in later centuries. To be fair, Origen did not insist
that his anthropological speculations should be hardened into a dogma, but
intended them as exploratory. Among the theologians who continued these
explorations, an eminent place belongs to the fourth-century Cappadocian
bishop Gregory of Nyssa. Two works of Gregory, On the Making of Man
and On the Soul and the Resurrection, exemplify a discriminating reception
of Origen’s speculations, as well as a rigorous engagement of philosophi-
cal sources, especially Plato and the later Platonists, in light of scripture.
Gregory argues for the fourth conjunction that both God and the soul are
incorporeal.
On the Soul and the Resurrection begins with an observation that the
materialist argument against the existence of the soul—that the soul is not
available to external observation and therefore does not exist—also applies to
God. Human beliefs in the existence of God and the soul are closely related (a
point that was not lost either on René Descartes, or more recently, on Alvin
Plantinga54). In response to the materialist challenge, Gregory formulates a
version of an argument from design: the order, beauty, attunement, and har-
mony of an otherwise mindless universe seem to point beyond themselves.
These features could be taken as evidence of the existence of a single divine
power that accounts for the motion and order of various parts. The fact that
God is not available to sense-perception does not make him any less real in
the universe. Gregory then observes that each human being is a microcosm,
whose soul functions in the body in a way similar to God’s agency in the
world. Like God, the soul is incorporeal (ἀσώματος).55 One argument for the
soul’s immateriality is its ability to reason from known features (design in
the world) to unknown entities (the existence of a divine designer), which
themselves are not objects of sense-perception.
The soul resembles God in being “intellectual, incorporeal, unconnected
with any notion of weight, and in eluding any measurement of its dimen-
sions.”56 For this reason, it would be an exercise in futility to try to locate the
soul in a particular part of the body, whether heart, brain, or liver. According
to Gregory, the soul “is not restricted to any part of the body, but is equally in
touch with the whole, producing its motion according to the nature of the part
which is under its influence.”57 The soul is not spatially contained in the body
and vice versa.58 The soul communicates its “vivifying energy” (ζωτικὴ ἐνέρ
γεια)59 to the body, but the precise nature of soul-body interaction is beyond
human understanding. The soul is omnipresent and invisible in the body in a
manner similar to God’s omnipresence and invisibility in creation. The unity
of the soul is not broken by the multiplicity of its powers; similarly, God’s
simplicity is not undermined by the plurality of his operations in creation.
Another important feature that connects the rational soul or mind to God is
free will.60 The mind, “as being in the image of the most beautiful, itself also
remains in beauty and goodness so long as it partakes as far as possible in its
likeness to the archetype; but if it were at all to depart from this it is deprived
of that beauty which it was.”61 Similar to Origen’s view, human likeness to
God is a dynamic rather than permanent feature of human existence, crucially
depending upon the measure of voluntary participation in God. Rational crea-
tures are capable of losing divine likeness if they choose against God.
The soul is similar, but not identical, to God. The soul is created, whereas
God is the creator of all things. The creation of all things out of nothing pres-
ents the following difficulty: how can an immaterial God be the creator of
material things? Gregory asks, are material things in some sense contained in
God? He answers that material things are “in” God not in any spatial sense,
for this would make God himself material, but in the sense that God has the
power to create them. Gregory suggests that the creation of any particular
body is a convergence of different properties, such as color, shape, and so on.
Since these properties before instantiation are not bodies, it follows that the
creation of bodies is a convergence of intelligible or nonmaterial properties.
The precise mechanism of this idealist scheme of creation remains somewhat
mysterious.62
The soul does not create its own body. Pace non-Christian Platonists and
Origen, Gregory denies both the preexistence and the transmigration of souls.63
The soul and body are created at the same time.64 Gregory offers the following
working definition of the soul: “The soul is an essence which has a beginning;
it is a living and intellectual essence which by itself gives to the organic and
sensory body the power of life and reception of sense-impressions as long as
the nature which can receive these remains in existence.”65 Gregory does not
object to the Aristotelian taxonomy of the vegetative soul of plants, sensitive
soul of animals, and rational soul of humans, and even finds this classifica-
tion partially justifiable on scriptural grounds.66 Nevertheless, only humans
possess “the true and perfect soul,” whereas plants and animals have “vital
energy” rather than the soul proper.67 Such a narrowing of the definition, for
which there were already some precedents in the Greek philosophical tradi-
tion, had the advantage of making the soul something distinctly human and
blocking possible speculation about the exchange of souls between humans
and animals. At the general resurrection, each human soul reconstitutes its
body by attracting the atoms scattered after the body’s dissolution.68
It is clear that Gregory of Nyssa was not an uncritical recipient of Origenist
and Plotinian thought. Crucially, he departs from Origen and late Platonism
in rejecting the preexistence and the fall of the soul. Like Origen, he insists
on the created and changeable nature of the soul. The soul’s incorporeality
is important in order to safeguard its freedom and its ability to operate with
nonphysical entities, such as abstract concepts and the idea of God. The
soul’s presence in the body parallels the omnipresence of God in creation.
If Gregory accepts this particular Plotinian trope, it is only because it was
useful for conveying the biblical understanding of the immanence and tran-
scendence of God.
AUGUSTINE
Augustine is often portrayed as the main culprit who infected biblical

anthropology with “Greek dualism” (with attendant phobias concerning the
body and sexuality), which needs to be exposed and rooted out of Christian
theology once and for all.69 In our discussion of Tertullian, Origen, and
Gregory of Nyssa, we have already undertaken to correct this caricature by
pointing out that Greek philosophical thought was not monolithically dualist
and that corporealism, whether popular or philosophical, was a broadly held
view. More generally, “[t]he corporeality and incorporeality of God indeed
seems to occupy a central place in the structure of Late Antique thought; it
delineates a fundamental demarcation among basic religious attitudes, as well
as among major philosophical schools.”70 Christian theologians were aware
of the popularity of corporealism and rejected it both on general philosophical
and specifically theological grounds. Augustine’s intellectual evolution also
involved overcoming corporealism and building the case for the incorporeal-
ity of God and the soul.
As Augustine stated in his Soliloquies, the main aim of his work was “to
know God and the soul,” and when pressed to tell if he wished to know
anything else, he responded, “Absolutely nothing.”71 His views concerning
the divine nature underwent an evolution from naïve anthropomorphism,
to philosophical corporealism of a Stoic kind, to skepticism stimulated by
his engagement of academic arguments, to the view that God transcends
physical reality, espoused by Ambrose of Milan.72 Concurrently, Augustine’s
anthropological views underwent an even more complex evolution from the
Manichean idea of two souls in one human being, to the Platonic teaching that
the soul was a part of the intelligible divine realm and preexisted its embodi-
ment, and finally to a Christian understanding, influenced by Ambrose, that
the soul is incorporeal yet created, although precisely how it is created and
comes to be united to the body remained an especially difficult issue in light
of Augustine’s doctrine of original sin. Augustine’s writings also reflect a
polemic against those in the church who took exception to the incorporeality
of the soul, while accepting the unique incorporeality of God (the third con-
junction in our taxonomy). Our brief survey will focus on the period when
Augustine came to believe that both God and the soul were incorporeal (the
fourth conjunction in our taxonomy).
In Confessions VII, Augustine discusses his early struggles with under-
standing the nature of God. While it was relatively easy for him to banish the
anthropomorphic depictions of the divine nature, it was far more difficult to
imagine God as anything other than a body. Augustine was persuaded by the
corporealist postulate that “everything from which space was abstracted was
non-existent” and on those grounds held that God was “something physical
occupying space diffused either in the world or even through infinite space
outside the world.”73 Similar to the Stoics, Augustine conceived of God as a
refined physical substance permeating everything and extending in infinite
space. Augustine’s early corporealism shows an enduring influence of Tertul-
lian and Stoic corporealism in Latin theology. According to François Masai,
corporealism was the dominant view in much of western theology until the
time of Augustine. While Masai may have exaggerated his case, Augustine
certainly took the intuitive appeal of corporealism and the attendant difficulty
of conceiving the incorporeal substance with utter seriousness, even if he
eventually found corporealism untenable.74
Augustine also encountered a peculiar version of corporealism in Man-
ichaeism. This religious teaching was a form of ontological dualism, which
postulated an opposition between the divine sphere of light and the sphere
of darkness, which rebelled against the light. The Manicheans explained the
division within the human self between good and evil desires in terms of the
anthropological dualism of two natures or two souls, both of which were
conceived in corporeal terms. While such a teaching could provide a con-
venient excuse for Augustine’s waywardness during his Manichean period,
later in life he no longer found this view to be philosophically satisfactory.
The postulate of two souls could not explain how the decision to do good or
evil could belong to a single decision maker. Besides, in any decision mak-
ing there were often more than just two options involved. To allow a sepa-
rate soul for each option was to open doors not just to the duality, but to the
indefinite plurality of souls (or minds or natures) in one human agent, which
was absurd. While Augustine took seriously the reality of inner conflict and
divided will, he rejected Manichean corporealism and the attendant ontologi-
cal and anthropological dualisms.75 The problem of inner conflict could be
resolved through the integration of the self rather than through its division
into opposing substances.
In his letter 166 to Jerome, Augustine carefully defines bodily substances
in order to allow for the possibility of incorporeal substances:
If every substance, or essence, or—if that which exists somehow in itself is

more suitably called anything else—is a body, then the soul is a body. So too if
one prefers to call only that nature incorporeal which is immutable in the high-
est degree and whole everywhere, the soul is a body, because it is not such a
thing. But if only that is a body which is at rest or in motion through space with
length, breadth and height so that it occupies a larger place with a larger part of
itself and a smaller place with a smaller part and is smaller in a part than in the
whole, then the soul is not a body.76
Augustine’s definition of the body is designed to prevent confusion over the

corporealist postulate that everything that exists is a body of some kind. He
also seeks to avoid an imprecise use of the term “incorporeal” in the sense of
“rarified” or “airy,” which was still current in his time.77 Augustine defines
the soul as “a certain substance partaking in reason and suited to rule the
body” and ascribes it to all living beings, although his main focus is the
rational soul. According to Roland Teske, Augustine “uses the Latin anima
for soul in general, while reserving animus or mens for the rational soul.”78
Augustine accepts the threefold division of the human being into spirit, soul,
and body on the authority of scripture (1 Thess. 5:23), but recognizes that
the twofold division, which identifies the spirit with the rational aspect of the
soul, is equally acceptable.79
According to Augustine, one reason why the soul is not a body is because
it is present in its entirety in each part of the body.80 This exploratory point of
Aristotelian psychology became commonplace in later Platonism, especially
as it came to differentiate itself from Stoic corporealism.81 Although Augus-
tine rejects corporealism, he builds on the Stoic concept of intentio in order
to account for the soul-body relation: “The soul is stretched out through the
entire body that it animates, not by a local diffusion, but by a certain vital
intention.”82 As he elaborates elsewhere, “The soul is not of a bodily nature,
nor does it fill the body as its local space, like water filling a bottle or a
sponge, but in wonderful ways it is mixed into the body it animates, and with
its incorporeal nod (nutu), so to say, it powers or steers the body with a kind
of concentration (intentio), not with any material engine.”83 Intentio marks
the soul’s capacity to focus its energies on different bodily functions, per-
haps somewhat similar to Gregory of Nyssa’s “vivifying energy,” discussed
earlier. As Kevin Corrigan explains, “Intentio is also connected with the
will, intention, or activity of the subject, and this is important since we may
obviously be curious about what in the [soul-body] compound it is that actu-
ally does the willing, seeing, imagining, and so on, and this is primarily for
Augustine the rational soul or mens.”84 The presence of the soul in the body
renders possible simultaneous awareness of different bodily experiences as
experiences of one and the same subject.
The second reason the soul is incorporeal is because it is capable of gener-
ating and storing images of corporeal things that are far greater than its body.
If the soul were purely corporeal, its size would be limited by its body, with
the result that there would not be enough space to store the spatially extended
images of corporeal things. However, the soul’s powers of memory and imag-
ination are quite capable of storing and retrieving such images, which implies
that such images are apprehended in a manner excluding spatial extension
and, therefore, by definition, incorporeal.85
The third reason the soul, or to be more precise, the rational soul or the
mind (mens), is incorporeal is a combination of the first two reasons. The
mind has the capacity to be present to itself, to make itself the object of
thought and attention in its entirety. In so doing, the mind has a tendency to
confuse itself with the physical things that it perceives through the senses and
thinks about, but the mind is none of those things. It is precisely because the
mind is capable of holding the images of material things in itself by means of
the power of memory after those things are no longer directly perceived that
its activity is not reducible to anything corporeal.86
The fourth and final reason why the soul is incorporeal is theological. In
On the Soul and its Origin, Augustine argues against a young theologian who
claims that God is incorporeal, while the soul is not (corresponding to the
third conjunction in our classification). Augustine regards such a view as an
inconsistent halfway option between Tertullian’s corporealism, which postu-
lates that both God and the soul are bodies sui generis, and the view that both
God and the soul are incorporeal. Augustine takes care to differentiate the
soul from divine nature. God is unchangeable and omnipotent, while the soul
is changeable and limited in power.87 Augustine argues that if the soul were
corporeal, it would not be capable of receiving the image of the incorporeal
God. It is precisely as incorporeal that the rational soul is made in the image
of God, more specifically, in the image of the trinity.88
Augustine’s doctrine of original sin presented certain problems for theo-
rizing about the soul’s origin. Augustine considered different hypotheses,
including traducianism, creationism, and the fallen-soul view.89 Traducian-
ism had the advantage of accounting for the transmission of original sin from
parents to children, but the disadvantage of having materialist implications
and the association with Tertullian, whose corporealism Augustine dismissed
as “madness.”90 Creationism, which was a view that the individual souls
were specially created by God, had broad support in the church, but did
not have an obvious explanation for original sin in a freshly created soul.
The fallen-soul view had the support of Origen and his followers, but came
with the baggage of the theory of transmigration, which Augustine rejected.
Augustine was aware of the flaws of each hypothesis and for this reason was
reluctant to settle on any one in particular. He believed that any hypothesis
about the soul’s origin had to be compatible with the claims that the soul was
incorporeal and that the human race had fallen “in Adam” with all the atten-
dant difficulties of interpreting Romans 5:12. Augustine was also careful not
to associate original sin exclusively with the body and located the problem,
or rather the symptoms of the fallen human condition, in the inability of the
soul to fully control the body and in the disorder (concupiscentia) of human
desires. He was also concerned with making his protological and anthropo-
logical views consistent with eschatology by emphasizing the integration of
the soul with the transfigured body in the resurrection. Like Origen, Augus-
tine was careful not to ascribe to his speculations on the soul’s origin and on
the soul-body relation undue finality and dogmatic significance. When all
was said and done, Augustine acknowledged that these matters remained a
profound mystery. To understand themselves properly, humans must relearn
to see themselves in God.91
Whatever the undeniable difficulties of Augustine’s system, the caricature

that he injected into biblical anthropology a fatal dose of “Greek dualism”
needs to be set aside. Augustine did not succumb to an intellectual monolith
called “Greek dualism,” because such a monolith is a product of historical
fancy. Instead, he initially interiorized the corporealism of the Stoic type,
then for a short time toyed with the Manichean brand of dualism, which was
also a corporealism of sorts, then became persuaded on philosophical grounds
by the claim that both God and the soul were incorporeal, which claim he
faithfully integrated with the biblical teaching of humanity’s creation in the
image of God. It cannot be doubted that he was strongly influenced by later
Platonism, especially by Plotinus; it is equally certain that he discriminated
between the Platonist claims that were consistent with and those that were
contrary to the revealed truth.
CONCLUSION
The Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed draws on Colossians 1:16, describing

God as the “maker of all things, visible and invisible.” The Origenist tradi-
tion construed “invisible” as “incorporeal.” The Chalcedonian Definition
(451) speaks of Christ’s humanity as consisting of “a rational soul and body.”
While these authoritative conciliar documents do not have recourse to the
concept of incorporeality, they are consistent with the fourth conjunction
that both God and the soul are incorporeal. Although scriptural authors were
not explicit on the matter, early Christian theologians had sound philosophi-
cal and theological reasons for defending incorporeality. Origen, Gregory
of Nyssa, and Augustine were far from ignoring the scriptural account of
human nature in favor of “Greek dualism.” In fact, a monolith that goes
under the title of “Greek dualism” is a profoundly misleading scholarly con-
struct, which needs to be very carefully qualified or, better still, set aside in
future historical studies of early Christian anthropology. We have seen that
dualisms came in different shapes and sizes; that the varieties of ontological
dualism should not be confused with the varieties of anthropological dualism;
that both prephilosophical and Stoic corporealism remained attractive for
some in the church, including such prominent figures as Tertullian and early
Augustine; that the Late Antique market of ideas was no less complex than
our own; that many Christian theologians were aware of this complexity and
had to navigate this difficult terrain by making intellectual choices that are
no less challenging than those presented by modern science; that ultimately
the Church Fathers settled on an account of human nature that included an
incorporeal soul, bearing God’s image and made immortal by God’s grace.
The defense of the soul’s incorporeality was motivated by the need to provide
a suitable metaphysical framework for human freedom, interiority, awareness

of bodily experiences, personal identity through memory and self-awareness,
the self’s continued existence after the dissolution of the earthly body, and,
most importantly, human ability to think about and communicate with the
incorporeal God.
NOTES
1. Daniel C. Dennett, Freedom Evolves (New York: Viking, 2003), 1.

2. Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, 3rd ed. (London: Penguin Books, 1973),
13–25.
3. Nancey Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), ix.
4. See Nancey Murphy, “Nonreductive Physicalism,” in In Search of the Soul:
Four Views of the Mind-Body Problem, ed. Joel B. Green and Stuart L. Palmer (Down-
ers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 116.
5. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.2, eds. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1960), 378.
6. Ibid., 382.
7. Oscar Cullman, Immortality of the Soul: or, Resurrection of the Dead? The
Witness of the New Testament (New York: Macmillan, 1958), 30. Cf. Krister Stendahl:
“The world that comes to us through the Bible, OT and NT, is not interested in the
immortality of the soul. And if you think it is, it is because you have read this into
the material” (“Immortality is Too Much and Too Little,” in Meanings: The Bible as
Document and as Guide [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984], 196).
8. “Biblical scholarship has established quite conclusively that there is no dichot-
omous concept of man in the Bible, such as is found in Greek and Hindu thought. The
biblical view of man is holistic, not dualistic. The notion of the soul as an immortal
entity which enters the body at birth and leaves it at death is quite foreign to the bibli-
cal view of man,” Lynn de Silva, The Problem of Self in Buddhism and Christianity
(London: Macmillan, 1979), 75.
9. The standard etymology of ψυχή connects it to the verb ψύχω, to breathe. See
Carl Huffman, “The Pythagorean Conception of the Soul from Pythagoras to Phi-
lolaus,” in Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy, ed. Dorothea Frede and Burkhard
Reis (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009), 21–43. The term ἄψυχος is attested as early as
Archilochus (seventh c. BCE), fr. 193 W; see R. Renehan, “On the Greek Origins of
the Concepts Incorporeality and Immateriality,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies
21.2 (Summer 1980): 125.
10. Aristotle, De anima, 1.2.403b29.
11. Aristotle, De anima, 1.2.405b.
12. Aristotle, Physica, 212a12 and 215b5, trans. R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye, in
Jonathan Barnes, ed., Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 1: The Revised Oxford
Translation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 366. See Renehan, “On
the Greek Origins of the Concepts Incorporeality and Immateriality,” 112.
13. Aristotle, De anima, 1.2.403b–404b.

14. Aristotle, De anima, 1.2.404a16. See Huffman, “The Pythagorean Conception
of the Soul,” 29.
15. Aristotle, De anima, 1.2.404b31–405a4; trans. J. S. Smith, in Jonathan Barnes,
ed., Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 1: The Revised Oxford Translation (Princ-
eton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 645.
16. Epicurus, Epistula ad Herodotum 63, quoted in Stephen Everson, “Epicurean
Psychology,” in Keimpe Algra et al., eds., The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Phi-
losophy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 543.
17. A. A. Long, “Stoic Psychology,” in The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Phi-
losophy, 561.
18. A possible exception is Anaxagoras, although I agree with Renehan (115) that
the claim is an Aristotelian interpretation.
19. Plato, Sophist, 246a–b; trans. Harold North Fowler, Theaetetus, Sophist (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921), 373.
20. Renehan, “On the Greek Origins of the Concepts Incorporeality and Immate-
riality,” 129–130.
21. In Phaedo 85e, Plato compares the soul to the “invisible and incorporeal” har-
mony of the lyre. Cf. Timaeus 47c–d.
22. Plato, Phaedrus 245c.
23. Tertullian uses this common skeptical trope in De anima, 3, to great dramatic
effect. Having branded Greek philosophers “the patriarchs of heretics,” he observes:
“Some of them deny the immortality of the soul; others affirm that it is immortal,
and something more. Some raise disputes about its substance; others about its form;
others, again, respecting each of its several faculties” (trans. Peter Holmes, in The
Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, vol. 3 [New York:
Scribners, 1903], 184. Cf. Tatian, Ad Graecos, 25).
24. Origen, De principiis, 1. Praef. 8, trans. G. W. Butterworth, Origen: On First
Principles (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973), 5, after the Latin translation of
Rufinus.
25. Origen, De principiis, 1. Praef. 9, trans. Butterworth, 6.
26. Tertullian, De carne Christi, 11.4: “Omne quod est, corpus est sui generis,
nihil incorporale, nisi quod non est”; see Petr Kitzler, “Tertullian’s Concept of the
Soul and His Corporealistic Ontology,” in J. Lagouanere and S. Fialon, eds., Tertul-
lianus Afer: Tertullien et la littérature chrétienne d’Afrique, Instrumenta Patristica et
Mediaevalia 70 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 43–63. Cf. Tertullian, De anima, 7: “Nihil
enim nisi corpus.” In Adversus Praxeam, 7.8, Tertullian asks rhetorically: “For who
will deny that God is body, although God is a spirit? For spirit is body of its own kind,
in its own form” (trans. Ernest Evans, Tertullian’s Treatise against Praxeas [London:
SPCK, 1948], 138). How the divine body was to be differentiated from the body of
the world in order to avoid pantheistic implications remained a somewhat moot point.
See Carl W. Griffin and David L. Paulsen, “Augustine and the Corporeality of God,”
Harvard Theological Review 95, no. 1 (2002): 97–118, esp. 101.
27. Tertullian, De anima, 5. For the discussion of Tertullian’s Stoic sources, see
Kitzler, “Tertullian’s Concept of the Soul,” 49. Tertullian’s version of this argument is
clearly Stoic, not Epicurean, as in Lucretius, De rerum natura, III.160–169.
28. Tertullian, De anima, 7.

29. Tertullian, De anima, 3, 4.
30. Tatian, Ad Graecos, 4.2.
31. Tatian, Ad Graecos, 25, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, trans. Alexander
Roberts, 76.
32. Justin, Dialogus cum Tryphone, 1.6. There was no consensus among the
Middle Platonists on the issue of the soul’s divinity. See John Dillon, The Middle
Platonists, 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977),
100, 292.
33. Justin, Dialogus cum Tryphone, 6.1.
34. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, 5.7.1; see J. Behr, Asceticism and Anthropology
in Irenaeus and Clement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 91.
35. Origen, Dialogus cum Heraclide 6.23–24, trans. Robert J. Daly, Origen:
Treatise on the Passover and Dialogue of Origen with Heraclides and his Fel-
low Bishops on the Father, the Son, and the Soul (New York: Paulist Press,
1992), 62.
36. Origen, De principiis, 2.8.3–4.
37. Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 6. 7.
38. Origen, De principiis, 1.7.1, trans. Butterworth, 59.
39. Origen, Contra Celsum, 7.32, trans. Henry Chadwick (Cambridge, UK: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1965), 420.
40. Origen, De principiis, 1.6.4; cf. 2.2.2, trans. Butterworth, 58, 81.
41. “God is not a material substance. We would not fall into the absurd ideas held
by the philosophers who follow the doctrines of Zeno and Chrysippus” (Contra Cel-
sum, 8.49, trans. Chadwick, 488).
42. Brian E. Daley, “Incorporeality and ‘Divine Sensibility’: The Importance of
De Principiis 4.4 for Origen’s Theology,” Studia Patristica 41 (2006): 143, n. 24.
See also Henri Crouzel, “Le theme platonicien de ‘véhicule de l’âme’ chez Origène,”
Didaskalia 7 (1977): 225–237.
43. Origen, De principiis, 2.6.3; cf. Plato, Timaeus, 35a 1–3.
44. Origen, De principiis, 2.8.4.
49. Origen, Dialogue with Heraclides 15.30–34, trans. Daly, 69.
50. See Arne J. Hobbel, “The Imago Dei in the Writings of Origen,” Studia Patris-
tica 21 (1989): 301–307.
51. Origen, Contra Celsum, 6.63; trans. Chadwick, 378–379. Cf. De principiis,
2.10.7; 3.1.13.
52. Origen, Dialogus cum Heraclide, 26.30–27.6, trans. Daly, 77.
53. Origen, De principiis, 1.6.4; 2.3.7. The fact that Origen’s investigations into
the nature of the resurrected state were intentionally tentative was very often lost on
his later critics.
54. See Plantinga, God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of
Belief in God (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967).
55. Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurrectione, in Gregorii Nysseni De anima et

resurrectione, Opera dogmatica minora, part III, eds., Andreas Spira and Ekkehardus
Mühlenberg (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 14.15
56. Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurrectione, in Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 5, trans. H. A. Wilson, 26.12–13.
57. Gregory of Nyssa, De hominis opificio, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
vol. 5, trans. H. A. Wilson, 14.1; cf. 15.3.
58. Gregory of Nyssa, De hominis opificio, 15.3.
59. Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurrectione, 28.4.
61. Gregory of Nyssa, De hominis opificio, 12.9, trans. Wilson, 399.
63. Gregory of Nyssa, De hominis opificio, 28.1. He mentioned that both issues
were a subject of ongoing discussion in the church.
65. Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurrectione, 15.6–9.
66. Gregory of Nyssa, De hominis opificio. 8.4.
68. Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurrectione, 55.17–56.14.
69. For an alternative interpretation of Augustine’s role, see J. Patout Burns,
“Variations on a Dualist Theme: Augustine on the Body and Soul,” in Interpreting
Tradition: The Art of Theological Reflection, ed. Jane Kopas (Chico, CA: Scholars
Press, 1983), 13.
70. Gedaliahu Stroumsa, “The Incorporeality of God: Context and Implications of
Origen’s Position,” Religion 13 (1983): 353.
71. Augustine, Soliloquia, 2.2.7.
72. Augustine recollects that as a young student in Tagaste, under the influence of
Manichean teaching, “when I wanted to think of my God, I knew of no way of doing
so except as a physical mass. Nor did I think anything existed which is not material.
That was the principal and almost sole cause of my inevitable error” (Confessiones,
5.10.19, cf. 5.14.25).
73. Augustine, Confessiones, 7.1.1 (cf. 7.1.2; 7.5.7; 7.14.20).
74. François Masai, “Les conversions de Saint Augustin et les débuts du spiritual-
isme en Occident,” Le Moyen Âge 67(1961): 1–40.
75. Augustine, Confessiones, 8.10.23–24.
76. Quoted in R. J. Teske, “Saint Augustine on the Incorporeality of the Soul in
Letter 166,” The Modern Schoolman 60, no. 3 (1983): 175. Cf. Augustine, De trini-
tate, 10.7.9. This definition draws on Plotinus, Enneads, 4.2.
77. Augustine, De anima et ejus origine, 4.12.18.
78. Roland Teske, “Augustine’s Theory of Soul,” in The Cambridge Companion
to Augustine, eds. Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (Cambridge, UK: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2001), 116.
79. Augustine, De fide et symbolo, 10.23.
80. Augustine, De immortalitate animae, 16.25: “The soul, however, is present at
the same time and entire not only in the entire mass of its body, but also in each of its
individual parts. For, it is the entire soul that feels the pain of a part of the body, yet
it does not feel it in the entire body” (trans. Ludwig Schopp, The Immortality of the
Soul; The Magnitude of the Soul; On Music; The Advantage of Believing; On Faith in
Things Unseen, Fathers of the Church, vol. 4 [Washington, DC: Catholic University
of America Press, 1947], 46).
81. Aristotle, De anima, 1.5 411b19–28; Plotinus, Enneads, 6.4.4; 6.5.12.
82. Teske, “Saint Augustine on the Incorporeality of the Soul in Letter 166,” 176;
see also John M. Rist, Augustine (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1994), 108 n. 51.
83. De genesi ad litteram, 8.21.42; trans. Edmund Hill, On Genesis, The Works of
Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, part I, vol. 13 (Hyde Park, NY:
New City Press, 2002), 370.
84. Corrigan, “The Soul-Body Relation in and before Augustine,” 72.
85. Augustine, De anima et ejus origine, 4.17.25; Confessiones, 7.1.2; cf. Plotinus,
Enneads, 4.2.1.
86. Augustine, De trinitate, 10.5.7–10.14. For a brief summary of these three argu-
ments, see R. J. Teske, “Soul,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, eds.
Allan D. Fitzerald et al., (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 808.
87. Augustine, De anima et ejus origine, 4.12.18.
88. Augustine, De anima et ejus origine, 4.14.20; De trinitate, 14.2.4. Augustine
associates that which is made “in the image” with the soul so as to avoid the Mani-
chean objection that if the human body is made in God’s image then God, like the
human body, is anthropomorphic.
89. The last two designations in this classification are from Robert J. O’Connell,
The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine’s Later Works (New York: Fordham University
Press, 1987).
90. Augustine, Letter 190.4.14–15; discussed in Rist, Augustine, 318.
91. Augustine, Confessiones, 10.8.15, 10.17.26, 13.31.46; De Genesi ad litteram,
4.32.50; see Rist, Augustine, 146.
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING
Aristotle. De anima. Trans. J. S. Smith. In Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 1: The

Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Jonathan Barnes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1984.
Burns, Patout J. “Variations on a Dualist Theme: Augustine on the Body and Soul.”
In Interpreting Tradition: The Art of Theological Reflection, edited by Jane Kopas.
Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983.
Cary, Phillip. Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Pla-
tonist. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Crabbe, James C., ed. From Soul to Self. London: Routledge, 1999.
Cullman, Oscar. Immortality of the Soul: or, Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness
of the New Testament. New York: Macmillan, 1958.
Daley, Brian E. “Incorporeality and ‘Divine Sensibility’: The Importance of De Prin-

cipiis 4.4 for Origen’s Theology.” Studia Patristica 41 (2006): 139–144.
Gregory of Nyssa. De anima et resurrectione. In Opera dogmatica minora, part III,
edited by Andreas Spira and Ekkehardus Mühlenberg. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill,
2014.
Long, A. A. “Stoic Psychology.” In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philoso-
phy, edited by Keimpe Algra, et al. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1999.
Origen. De principiis. In Origen: On First Principles. Translated by G. W. Butter-
worth. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973.
Origen. Dialogus cum Heraclide. In Origen: Treatise on the Passover and Dialogue
of Origen with Heraclides and his Fellow Bishops on the Father, the Son, and the
Soul. Translated by Robert J. Daly. New York: Paulist Press, 1992.
Stroumsa, Gedaliahu. “The Incorporeality of God: Context and Implications of Ori-
gen’s Position.” Religion 13 (1983): 345–358.
Teske, Roland J. To Know God and the Soul: Essays on the Thought of St. Augustine.
Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008.
Chapter 2
Christian Physicalism
Against the Medieval Divines
Thomas Atkinson
Christian physicalism has not had a time-honored history. No ecumenical

council, denominational synod, or inquisitorial office, no Pope or archbishop
or reformer, has, to my knowledge, ever endorsed physicalism.1 In fact, one
may note that the doctrinal statements of a large variety of Christian denomi-
nations have been taken to be inconsistent with physicalism.2 This, one may
think, is to the advantage of the Christian antiphysicalist. Departure from the
Church’s teaching for nineteen and a half centuries is no insignificant mat-
ter. While one may think it fallacious to reason that because the Church has
taught something from time immemorial it must, therefore, be true, it is not
fallacious to take the Church’s creeds and other statements to hold an author-
ity higher than one’s own reason (or even, perhaps, the collective reason of a
small group of thinkers).
The historical chapters in this volume together attempt to make clear how
it is that Christian physicalism departs from the teaching of the Church. In
an earlier chapter, Paul Gavrilyuk considered the early Church Fathers. It is
the purpose of this chapter to argue that Christian physicalism is inconsistent
with some theses held by the medieval divines. In this respect, Christian
physicalism marks a departure from the Church’s teaching. This will prob-
ably not come as a surprise to anyone. What makes this project especially
interesting, however, is that if there were to be a time in Church history
(before the nineteenth century) wherein physicalism would have been taken
most seriously by Christians, it would likely have been the medieval period.
In this chapter, therefore, I will do two things. First, I will give an over-
view of some of the reasons why philosophers and theologians understand
the medieval divines (particularly Thomas Aquinas) to take seriously a posi-
tion closer to the contemporary physicalist view of the human person, than
the dominant view of the human person in the Church (namely, substance
27
28 Thomas Atkinson
dualism). I will do this by highlighting several points of agreement between

Christian physicalists and the views of the medieval divines against the views
of Christian substance dualists. Second, however, I will also highlight sev-
eral points of conflict between the views of medieval divines and Christian
physicalists. In the last analysis, I shall conclude that although physicalism
is, in some respects, consistent with the thought of the medieval divines in
a way that substance dualism is not, the central thesis of physicalism is still
inconsistent with the thought of the medieval divines.3
CHRISTIAN PHYSICALISM
Given that this chapter aims to display the consistencies and inconsistencies
between Christian physicalism and the views of the medieval divines, I must
define “Christian physicalism.” Moreover, given that this chapter aims to dis-
play the inconsistencies between Christian substance dualism and the views
of the medieval divines, I should also define “Christian substance dualism.”
First, consider physicalism. Physicalism is the view that
(P) every instantiated property, F, is necessitated by, and not metaphysically

distinct from, some physical property G.4
Here are some examples of instantiated properties. Being made of aluminium

is a property instantiated by my computer. Being an uncle is a property that
I instantiate. What it is like to taste ice cream is a property instantiated by
a human being eating an ice cream. This last kind of property is known as
a “mental” or “psychological” property. Consider another mental property:
what it is like to see red. Consider a physical property (or collection of proper-
ties) that is plausibly instantiated at the same time as the mental property just
mentioned; let’s say, the collection of physical properties “oscillations in V4”
(an area of the visual cortex). According to (P) an instantiated mental property
like the property what it is like to see red is necessitated by a physical property
(or collection of physical properties) like certain oscillations in V4. This just
means that it is impossible for the mental property—what it is like to see red—
to be instantiated and no physical property be instantiated at the same time.
Not only this, but according to (P) every instantiated mental property is
“not metaphysically distinct” from some physical property. Different kinds of
physicalism will spell out this part of (P) in different ways.5 For our purposes,
it will do to say that two properties are metaphysically distinct when they
belong to different metaphysical kinds. The two metaphysical kinds that we
are interested in (and which are perhaps the most dissimilar of all metaphysi-
cal kinds) are “physical” and “non-physical.”
Christian Physicalism 29
This, of course, raises the question “what is a physical property?”6 This is

a vexed question.7 Daniel Stoljar understands the concept “physical property”
to be a cluster concept. He thinks that a “physical property” is, for example,
(a) a distinctive property of intuitively physical objects, (b) expressed by a
predicate of physics, (c) objective, (d) knowable through scientific investiga-
tion, and (e) not a distinctive property of substances such as Cartesian souls
and ectoplasm, etc.8
Christian physicalists cannot affirm this kind of physicalism. This is
because Christian physicalists do not think that every instantiated property
is metaphysically indistinct from a physical property. Christian physicalists
believe in things such as God, angels, demons, the Holy Spirit, etc., and they
believe these things instantiate properties that are metaphysically distinct
from physical properties. The Christian physicalist believes that God, for
example, instantiates properties such as the property of loving the Son—a
property that is, I take it, uncontroversially nonphysical.9 In consequence,
Christian physicalists must be (and are) only physicalists with regards to
human persons. Call this local physicalism:
(LP) every property, F, instantiated by a human person is necessitated by, and

not metaphysically distinct from, some physical property, G, instantiated by that
human person.10
Some mental properties are properties that are instantiated by human persons
and, according to the physicalist, are necessitated by, and are not metaphysi-
cally distinct from, some physical property of that human person.11
I frequently am asked the following question: why be a Christian and a
physicalist? Most Christian physicalists cite the recent successes of the neu-
rosciences as their reason for being a Christian physicalist. Nancey Murphy, a
Christian physicalist, writes the following: “[m]y argument in brief is this: all
of the human capacities once attributed to the mind or soul are now being fruit-
fully studied as brain processes.”12 In short (and to put it in the vocabulary being
employed in this chapter), Murphy and other Christian physicalists think that
mental properties, once thought to be nonphysical properties of a nonphysical
object (a soul), can now be studied as (metaphysically indistinct from) properties
of the brain (or, perhaps, the human being: a wholly physical thing). While Mur-
phy recognizes that this phenomenon doesn’t prove13 that these mental proper-
ties are (metaphysically indistinct from) properties of the brain or human person
(physical properties), she thinks that the denial of this claim (or one very similar)
is increasingly difficult to hold.14 Where once we thought the mental properties
of human beings were “nonphysical” we now have reason, so will say Murphy,
to think this is not the case. Rather, we now have reason to think that they are
physical properties, properties of brains, or (wholly physical) human persons.
30 Thomas Atkinson
It will be sufficient for our purposes to understand a “Christian” to be

someone who would, for example, (C) affirm the Nicene Creed. Christian
physicalists, for the purposes of this chapter, are those folk who affirm (C)
and (LP).
SUBSTANCE DUALISM
Before I move on to discuss the medieval divines, I should also state what
has undoubtedly been the dominant Christian view of the human person. I do
this so that I can state where the medieval divines disagree with the dominant
Christian view. The majority of Christians traditionally have been substance
dualists with regards to human persons.
Substance dualists with regards to the human person typically believe the
following:
(SD) There are two kinds of substance (physical and nonphysical), and we,
human persons, are either (i) nonphysical substances or (ii) composed, at least
in part, by a nonphysical substance.15
Christian substance dualists are those who accept (SD) and (C). Typically,
Christian substance dualists reject (LP). This is for a number of reasons.
Primarily, however, this is because Christian substance dualists believe there
are some properties that we instantiate that are nonphysical and that these
properties are instantiated by a nonphysical substance. Take, for example,
the property what it is like to experience red. According to the substance
dualist, this property is a property that is instantiated by (at least part of) a
human person, and this property is not a physical property. This property, so
the substance dualist will argue, is instantiated by a nonphysical substance;
namely, the soul.
It should be noted at this point that (LP) is inconsistent with another kind
of dualism, namely, property dualism. Property dualists16 think that we are
physical objects but that we instantiate nonphysical properties. The reason
why I rule out property dualism as a form of physicalism is because I under-
stand most contemporary physicalists to reject property dualism,17 Christian
physicalists being among the contemporary physicalists.
Take, for example, the perhaps most liberal form of physicalism: nonre-
ductive physicalism. Most nonreductive physicalists rule out property dual-
ism as a form of physicalism. This is because they think that while the mental
predicates of our sentences are essential for a full description of the world
and that these predicates are not reducible to the predicates of physics, there
are still no distinctly mental or nonphysical entities (such as nonphysical
properties) that are required to make the sentences in which these mental
predicates occur true. I know of no Christian physicalist who is also, at least
explicitly, a property dualist. I know of Christian physicalists that reject prop-
erty dualism. The Christian physicalist Peter van Inwagen explicitly rejects
property dualism.18 Furthermore, Murphy also makes statements that entail
the falsity of property dualism. She writes, “statements about the physical
nature of human beings made from the perspective of biology or neuroscience
are about exactly the same entity as statements made about the spiritual nature
of persons from the point of view of theology or religious traditions.”19 This
claim is contrary to the claims of property dualists. Christian property dual-
ists (if there are any) will likely hold that statements concerning the spiritual
nature of human persons are about entities (namely, nonphysical properties)
distinct from the entities that statements about the physical nature of human
persons concern (namely, physical properties). Moreover, Murphy explicitly
argues for “the acceptance of ontological reductionism.”20 Murphy’s ontolog-
ical reductionism is the view that “as one goes up the hierarchy of levels [e.g.,
from the level of physics to the level of the spiritual], no new metaphysical
‘ingredients’ need to be added.”21 This is precisely what property dualists
reject. Property dualists hold that mental properties are entities that are not
physical entities. If Murphy and other Christian physicalists are going to
admit a form of dualism, it will be a “predicate dualism” as described above.22
Those physicalists who believe we are composed of substances will, I take
it, believe we are composed of only physical substances: things like fermions,
quarks, leptons, gauge bosons, and things that are wholly composed by fer-
mions, quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons (if we human beings are, according
to the physicalist, composed of anything we will be composed wholly from
fermions, quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons).
I should note here that my primary concern, however, is not to try to show
that the medieval divines (or at least some of them) were substance dualists
(although some have found this view plausible23). My primary concern is to
show that the medieval divines would not have endorsed (LP).24
THE MEDIEVAL DIVINES AND MEDIEVAL

PERSONAL ONTOLOGY
The “medieval divines” consists of a wide variety of scholars, to name a few:

Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Peter
John Olivi. Although the medieval divines, in broad, shared much the same
view about the metaphysics of human persons, that view is shaded differently
by each individual scholar. Here is what the medieval divines seemingly
agreed upon. The medieval divines seemed to agree that we are composite
32 Thomas Atkinson
substances. That is, we, human persons, are substances composed of matter
and form. As Richard Cross notes, the medievals “were all convinced that
body and soul are united in such a way as to form one (composite) sub-
stance.”25 This view is called hylemorphism with regard to the human person.26
What is “matter” and what is a “form”? Very crudely, “matter” is the stuff
from which a thing is made,27 and “form” is the “dynamic configuration or
organisation” that the matter takes.28 In the case of a human person, the form
of the human person is the substantial form: the human soul. The “body” of a
human person is the prime matter that the human soul informs.
Given that, besides this point, medieval personal ontology was so nuanced,
arguing convincingly that (LP) is inconsistent with all of the views around in
the medieval period would require a book length treatment. In this chapter,
I therefore restrict myself to demonstrating that (LP) is inconsistent with
Thomas Aquinas’s personal ontology. I take Aquinas as the starting point for
two reasons. First, although medieval personal ontology is diverse, it seems
so only insofar as it diverges from Aquinas’s work. That is, most of the per-
sonal ontologies developed in medieval Europe consist of modifications to,
or arguments against, aspects of Aquinas’s personal ontology. Not only this
but, second, out of all the medieval views, Aquinas’s might be taken to be the
view that is the closest to physicalism. The reason being that Aquinas thought
the relationship between the body and the soul was tighter than some of his
contemporaries thought it.29 In consequence, if I can demonstrate that (LP) is
inconsistent with Aquinas’s personal ontology, it will likely be inconsistent
with the thought of the other medieval divines.
Drawing a direct comparison between the personal ontology of the medi-
eval divines (Aquinas in particular) and contemporary personal ontology is
no mean feat.30 As is true of most of the medieval divines, it is argued that
their view about the nature of the human person does not easily fit into con-
temporary taxonomy. Richard Cross, for example, starts his chapter on the
philosophy of mind in Duns Scotus’s work by noting that “medieval views on
the relation of mind and body occupy a strange territory somewhere between
substance dualism, on the one hand, and some form of materialism, on the
other.”31
Likewise, Robert Pasnau and Christopher Shields claim in their chapter on
Thomas Aquinas’s philosophy of mind in particular that
it is so far unclear whether Aquinas’ hylomorphism is best regarded as a kind

of materialism or a kind of dualism. On the one hand, in view of his orthodox
Christianity, one might expect Aquinas to be attracted to some form of dualism,
according to which the soul is separable from the body and capable of some
postmortem existence. At the same time, it is not clear how dualism of any form
could be reconciled with hylomorphism.32
The lack of clarity has meant that a number of contemporary commenta-

tors on Aquinas have him endorsing different contemporary accounts of the
human person. J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae have Aquinas’s view at least
broadly consistent with substance dualism.33 Brian Leftow puts Aquinas, in
general, in the property dualism camp.34 Robert Pasnau defends the view that
Aquinas is neither a substance dualist nor a property dualist, but a kind of
nonreductive materialist.35 Eleonore Stump, thinks that Aquinas’s position
might best fit with a kind of “non-reductive materialism” or a “non-Cartesian
substance dualism.”36 I hope to avoid the problems associated with positively
formulating Aquinas’s view in contemporary terms by merely arguing that
Aquinas cannot be considered a physicalist as defined above.37
In the remainder of this chapter, I will outline the reasons why some
contemporary thinkers take Aquinas’s thought to be more in line with some
sort of physicalism than substance dualism. I will also argue, however, that
nevertheless Aquinas would have certainly rejected (LP).
THE CONSISTENCY BETWEEN CHRISTIAN PHYSICALISM

AND THE MEDIEVAL DIVINES: WE ARE NOT SOULS
Put simply, the primary reason for the view that Christian physicalists and
the medieval divines agree is that both the Christian physicalists and the
medieval divines deny (i) of (SD); that is, they deny that we are immaterial
substances.
Christian physicalists and the medieval divines deny (i), however, for dif-
ferent reasons. First, Christian physicalists, on the whole, deny (i) because
they think that the findings of contemporary science render (i) implausible
(see Murphy, mentioned earlier). Aquinas, of course, could not deny (i) for
the same reason. Rather, Aquinas rejects (i) because he thinks that we are one
substance (namely, we are instances of the substance “human being”) and that
this substance is composed of physical and nonphysical parts: matter and an
immaterial substantial form. He writes, “body and soul are not two actually
existing substances; instead one actually existing substance comes from the
two.”38
Aquinas does not simply assert this. He provides some arguments. In par-
ticular, Aquinas takes Plato’s version of substance dualism (which posits (i))
as his target. According to Aquinas, Plato thought that “a human being is not
something composed of soul and body; rather a human being is a soul using
a body, so that the soul is understood to be in the body somewhat as a sailor
is in a ship.”39 Aquinas gives a number of arguments in response to Plato.
Here’s one of them. Aquinas argues, in effect, that (i) is unsatisfactory in the
light of our experience as embodied beings.40 Put simply, Aquinas argues that
34 Thomas Atkinson
because we experience ourselves as a thing that sees, touches, tastes, smells,

and hears, and since these actions require a body (a material substance), we
are not, therefore, an immaterial substance.41 Whether or not one thinks this
a good argument against (i) is beside the point. The point is that Aquinas
thought one of the disjuncts of (SD) was false.
THE CONSISTENCY BETWEEN CHRISTIAN

PHYSICALISM AND THE MEDIEVAL DIVINES: WE
ARE NOT COMPOSITES OF TWO SUBSTANCES
As I have put it substance dualism is a disjunctive position. In this case, one

can be a substance dualist and reject (i) so long as one accepts (ii); that is, we,
human persons, are composed, at least in part, by a nonphysical substance.
Aquinas, so it seems, would disagree with (ii) too, however. I say this because
I think a certain set of Aquinas interpreters have accurately articulated his
position as inconsistent with (ii). Even so, as will become apparent, Aqui-
nas’s view will not count as a form of physicalism. Here I will put forward
an argument for the view that Aquinas would reject (ii).
Aquinas, as mentioned above, thought that we are composite objects and
that we are composed of both body and soul. Importantly, however, the soul,
according to Aquinas, is not a substance. In consequence, Aquinas is not a
substance dualist with regards to the human person. Here, I recount a famil-
iar argument for the view that Aquinas did not think, at least when he was
thinking most carefully, that the soul was a substance.42 Aquinas would have
endorsed the following argument:
1. For any x, x is a substance only if x can (a) subsist per se and, is a (b)
complete member of a particular species and genus.
2. Souls are able to (a) subsist per se, but are not (b) complete members of a
particular species and genus.
3. Therefore,
4. Souls are not substances.
Aquinas believes premise 1. He writes, “[a]n individual in the genus of sub-

stance possesses not only per se subsistence, but is also something complete
in a particular species and genus of substance.”43 It is also clear that Aquinas
believes premise 2. Aquinas notes that while the rational soul can subsist
when it is not informing matter, it is not complete in species per se.44 Con-
sider Amy, a human being. Amy’s soul, while a subsisting thing, is not itself
complete in species when separated from a body. This is because Amy’s soul
when separated from a body cannot carry out all of the functions necessary
for its being completely human. It cannot, for example, consume, defecate,
breathe, or exhale.
This argument renders Aquinas’s view inconsistent with (SD). It is for
these reasons that Aquinas’s view may be considered closer to physicalism
than any other view in the Church’s history. That is, both Christian physical-
ists and Aquinas clearly reject (SD) where the dominant view throughout the
Church’s history has been (SD).
The question remains, however, how troubling should this be for our pur-
poses? I do not think it’s very troubling. Although Aquinas’s views about
personal ontology were not in keeping with the traditional substance dualism
usually associated with Christianity, his view (a) is not prima facie in conflict
with the Church’s teaching with regards to the nature of human persons, and
(b) his views are inconsistent with physicalism. I do not have time to defend
(a); I will now turn to defending (b).
THE CONFLICTS BETWEEN CHRISTIAN PHYSICALISM

AND THE MEDIEVAL DIVINES: WE INSTANTIATE MENTAL
PROPERTIES THAT ARE METAPHYSICALLY DISTINCT FROM
THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES THAT WE INSTANTIATE
The first way by which Aquinas’s views and the views of the Christian physi-
calists are inconsistent is that Aquinas (so I take it) thinks there are proper-
ties that are instantiated by human persons that are metaphysically distinct
from the physical properties instantiated by those human persons. I will now
attempt to argue for this.
In some passages, Aquinas recognizes there are some events that human
persons engage in that, so it seems, involve the instantiation of both non-
physical and physical properties. Take, for example, the event of a human
person’s engaging in intellectual activity or “intellection” (that is, thinking
about universals). Of all the acts of human cognition intellection is the one
that we might think is the best candidate for an act that transcends the physi-
cal nature of human persons.45 Having said this, two things should be noted.
First, it should be noted that according to Aquinas, even a human person’s
engaging in intellection during her terrestrial existence is, in part, a physical
event which involves the instantiation of physical properties.46 As Pasnau
writes, according to Aquinas “even our intellect is unable to operate without
the help of the body. All intellective cognition, [Aquinas] argues, requires
the sensory images that he refers to as phantasms: ‘It is impossible for our
intellect, in its present state of life . . . , actually to cognize anything without
turning towards phantasms’ (84.7c . . . ).”47 This warrants the conclusion that
the instantiation of physical properties by a human person is necessary for the
36 Thomas Atkinson
instantiation of the mental properties (typical of intellection) of that human

person (at least during that human person’s terrestrial existence).
Second, this does not, however, warrant the conclusion that the mental
properties of human persons instantiated upon intellection are metaphysi-
cally indistinct from the physical properties of those human persons. In fact,
one may think that according to Aquinas the mental properties (typical of
intellection) of human persons are metaphysically distinct from the physical
properties of those human persons. As Pasnau notes, the “[i]ntellect is spe-
cial because it transcends matter entirely; ‘To the extent that it surpasses the
existence of corporeal matter, being able to subsist and operate on its own.’”48
If a human person instantiates mental properties (properties typical of intel-
lection) and these properties surpass “the existence of corporeal matter,” are
these properties nonphysical? I think that the answer is “yes.” Especially
given that Aquinas admits that a thing is intelligent because it is immaterial.49
In this context, in the very least “surpassing existence,” I take it, means there
exist properties instantiated upon some human person’s engaging in the act
of intellection that are not properties of corporeal matter. If properties that are
not properties of corporeal matter are nonphysical, then there are properties
typical of intellection that should be understood as metaphysically distinct
from the physical properties of the human person that instantiates them.50
Pasnau, however, disagrees. Pasnau argues that Aquinas would not affirm
either substance or property dualism. This is because Pasnau thinks that
Aquinas has a
deeper metaphysical account . . . according to which the only genuine reality

in the world is actuality, and other things, even material things, are real only to
the extent that they are actual. There is nonmaterial stuff in the mind—Aquinas
calls it actuality—but he thinks that this actuality is spread throughout the cre-
ated world. Some things, such as the senses, are higher on the scale of being
because they have an operation that transcends the mere elements.51
While we may agree with Pasnau (for reasons that I have mentioned earlier)
that Aquinas was not a substance dualist with regards to the human person,
Pasnau still needs to give us a reason for believing that Aquinas should not be
understood as a property dualist. While Aquinas may have thought that “the
only genuine reality in the world is actuality,” the question remains, why is
it not sufficient for understanding Aquinas as a property dualist that Aquinas
accepts that the properties that human persons instantiate when engaged in
an intellective activity come in two different kinds of actuality: material and
immaterial?52 Here the material actuality involves the instantiation of physical
properties and immaterial actuality involves the instantiation of nonphysical
properties. I think this is sufficient for property dualism, and I can see no good
reason as to why we should think that Aquinas would endorse this thesis.
THE CONFLICTS BETWEEN CHRISTIAN

PHYSICALISM AND THE MEDIEVAL DIVINES: WE
INSTANTIATE MENTAL PROPERTIES THAT ARE
NOT NECESSITATED BY PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
Second, one can demonstrate that Aquinas would have disagreed with the
claim that every property, F, instantiated by a human person is necessitated
by some physical property, G, of that human person. Aquinas thinks there
is at least one occasion when there are mental properties of human persons
that are instantiated but there are no physical properties instantiated by that
human person that necessitates them. 53 This occasion is during the intermedi-
ate state.
There is a lively and interesting debate between those who read Aquinas
as a corruptionist and those who read Aquinas as a survivalist. Corruptionists
read Aquinas as holding it to be the case that when a human person dies she
ceases to exist even though her soul continues to exist. Survivalists read Aqui-
nas as holding it to be the case that when a human person dies she continues
to exist as her soul. Survivalists think that although the human person is never
identical to her soul, she is composed of her soul during the interim state and
so continues to exist. I, unfortunately, cannot here weigh in on this debate.
For the sake of the argument, however, in this chapter I assume that the
survivalists have it right.54 This point, however, should not matter too much.
If one thinks that Aquinas was a corruptionist, the argument that I put forward
can be adjusted slightly. One can argue that there are mental properties of
souls (mere parts of human persons) that are instantiated during the inter-
mediate state without there being any physical properties of a human person
necessitating them. I take it that the Christian physicalist would disagree with
this thesis too.55
Aquinas thinks that human persons (or, at least, the identity preserving part
of human persons) exist immediately after the death of the body. As Christo-
pher Brown notes, Aquinas thinks “the individual soul can preserve the being
and identity of the human being whose soul it is. In other words, although the
soul is not identical to the human being, a human being can be composed of
his or her soul alone.”56 Brown summarizes Aquinas’s view as follows:
God creates the human soul such that it shares its existence with matter when
a human being comes to exist (see, for example, SCG II, ch. 68, 3). Because
the being of the human soul is numerically the same as that of the composite—
again, the soul shares its being with the matter it configures whenever the soul
configures matter—when the soul exists apart from matter between death and
the general resurrection, the being of the composite is preserved insofar as the
soul remains in existence (see, for example: SCG IV, ch. 81, 11; ST Ia. q. 76, a.
1, ad5; and ST Ia IIae. q. 4, a. 5, ad2).57
38 Thomas Atkinson
The souls of the deceased, however, do not remain in existence during the
interim state devoid of any mental activity. As Aquinas notes, “when [the
rational soul] is separated from the body, it has a mode of understanding,
by turning to simply intelligible objects, as is proper to other separate sub-
stances.”58 If one grants that for a soul to have a “mode of understanding” it
needs to instantiate mental properties, then there exist properties of a human
person (namely, mental properties of a human person during the interim state)
that are instantiated when there are no physical properties of that person
instantiated.
In sum, at best, Christian physicalists and Thomas Aquinas share two
beliefs to the exclusion of Christian substance dualists. That is, both Christian
physicalists and Thomas Aquinas believe that human persons are not imma-
terial substances and that they are not a composite of two substances. These
two beliefs, however, do not render Aquinas’s view consistent with Christian
physicalism. This is because the central claims of local physicalism (namely,
the claims that we instantiate mental properties that are metaphysically dis-
tinct from the physical properties that we instantiate and the claim that we
instantiate mental properties that are not necessitated by physical properties)
are inconsistent with the view of Thomas Aquinas. In consequence, Christian
physicalism marks a departure from, at least, the view of Thomas Aquinas
and, no doubt, many of the medieval divines.59
NOTES
1. To refashion a claim made in Peter van Inwagen, “Dualism and Materialism,”

Faith and Philosophy 12, no. 4 (1995): 487.
2. I understand the Catechism of the Catholic Church, part 1, section 2, chapter 3,
articles 11–12 (paragraphs 1005–1019) to be incompatible with physicalism. See also
Oliver Crisp, God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology (New York: T & T Clark,
2009), 140–142. Crisp argues that the Council of Chalcedon throws up difficulties
(to say the least) for the Christian physicalist. It also strikes me that it is very hard
to make sense of the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 32, without rejecting
physicalism (interestingly, it strikes me that this chapter is wholly consistent with
Aquinas’s hylemorphism).
3. The main points that are made in this chapter are not wholly original. They can
be found elsewhere. I hope, however, that this chapter will (a) make the debates that
concern Christian physicalism’s departure from the thought of the medieval divines
clear, and (b) provide a useful introduction for others wanting to explore the intrica-
cies of the relationship between the thinking of the medieval divines and the Christian
physicalists in more detail.
4. See Daniel Stoljar, Physicalism (New York: Routledge, 2010), 235. I use Stol-
jar’s definition because I understand it to be the most up-to-date. I restrict Stoljar’s
definition just to simple properties, however, to avoid some absurdities (thanks to

Daniel Hill for alerting me to this point).
5. See Stoljar, Physicalism, 144.
6. I take it that a “nonphysical property” is any property that does not satisfy any
of the necessary conditions for a property’s being physical.
7. See, for example, Stoljar, Physicalism, 51–108.
8. See Stoljar, Physicalism, 57 and Barbara Montero, review of Physicalism, by
Daniel Stoljar (June 2012) available at http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/physicalism/
9. Stoljar would likely count this property as a “nonphysical” property in virtue
of the fact that it is a distinctive property of a wholly nonphysical being (d).
10. As mentioned, I restrict Stoljar’s definition just to simple properties.
11. There may be other ways by which Christian physicalism conflicts with the
thought of the medieval divines that is not to do with personal ontology. I restrict my
focus here, however, to personal ontology.
University Press, 2006), 56. Lynne Rudder Baker offers a slightly different but related
reason for her accepting Christian physicalism. She writes, “[i]mmaterial souls just
do not fit with what we know about the natural world. We human persons evolved by
natural selection (even if God actualized this world on the basis of His foreknowledge
of the outcome). Immaterial souls would simply stand out as surds in the natural
world” (Lynne Rudder Baker, “Persons and the Metaphysics of Resurrection,” Reli-
gious Studies 43, no. 3 [2007]: 341).
13. See Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?, 112.
14. I recommend Moreland’s “A Critique of and Alternative to Nancey Murphy’s
Christian Physicalism” (European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8, no. 2 [2016]:
107–128) for a reply to Murphy.
15. Of course, one may be a substance dualist and think that human persons are
wholly physical beings (Christian physicalists are substance dualists of this kind;
they believe in two kinds of substance physical and nonphysical). This is not how the
phrase is standardly used and I will not begin to use it this way.
16. Local property dualists to be precise.
17. Stoljar, Physicalism, 32, for example, seeks to rule out property dualism as a
form of physicalism.
Human and Divine, eds. Peter van Inwagen and Dean W. Zimmerman (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2007), 213–215.
19. Warren S. Brown, Nancey C. Murphy, and H. Newton Malony, “Preface,”
in Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human
Nature, eds. Warren S. Brown, Nancey C. Murphy, and H. Newton Malony (Min-
neapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), xiii.
20. Nancey C. Murphy, “Nonreductive Physicalism: Philosophical Issues,” in What-
ever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature, 130.
21. Murphy, “Nonreductive Physicalism,” 129.
22. See also Howard Robinson, “Dualism,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Phi-
losophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Winter 2016), available at https://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/win2016/entries/dualism/ (section 2.1).
40 Thomas Atkinson
23. It can be demonstrated that Aquinas himself, at times, explicitly identifies the
rational soul as a substance. See Summa Contra Gentiles; Book Two: Creation, trans.
James F. Anderson (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), chap-
ters 56 and 68, and the proem to Summa Theologica, Ia’s “Treatise on Man.”
24. I do this by showing that some of the (firmly held) claims of the medieval
divines are inconsistent with the claims of the Christian physicalists. Of course, had
the medieval divines been exposed to the arguments of the Christian physicalists they
might have changed their minds. I assume in this chapter that they would not have
changed their minds.
25. Richard Cross, “Philosophy of Mind,” in The Cambridge Companion to Duns
Scotus, ed. Thomas Williams (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 263.
An example of the different ways in which hylemorphism was shaded can be found
by reading Olivi’s work. Olivi rejects the Thomist claim that the intellective part of
the soul is the form of the body. See Pasnau’s, “Olivi on the Metaphysics of Soul,”
Medieval Philosophy & Theology 6, no. 2 (1997): 109–132.
26. More specifically, according to Aquinas we are human beings, human beings
are rational animals and all human beings fall under the category of person. See
Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q.16, a.12 ad 1. I will use the terms human being and human
person interchangeably.
27. It should be stressed that matter in and of itself, according to Aquinas, is not a
substance.
28. Eleonore Stump, Aquinas (London: Routledge, 2005), 36.
29. Take, for example, the disagreement between Aquinas and Olivi mentioned in
footnote 19.
30. Although I do not think it impossible or naïve.
31. Cross, “Philosophy of Mind,” 263.
32. Robert Pasnau and Christopher Shields, The Philosophy of Aquinas (Boulder,
CO: Westview, 2004), 158.
33. James Porter Moreland and Scott B. Rae, Body & Soul: Human Nature & the
Crisis in Ethics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000).
34. Brian Leftow, “Soul, Mind and Brain,” in The Waning of Materialism, ed.
Robert C. Koons and George Bealer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 411.
35. Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature: A Philosophical Study of
Summa Theologiae 1a, 75–89 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
36. Stump, at one point, considers Aquinas as a physicalist. She writes, “Patricia
Churchland supposes it to be one of the main characteristics of physicalism to hold
that ‘mental states are implemented in neural stuff.’ But if that characterization of
physicalism is right, Aquinas should apparently be grouped with the physicalists”
(Stump, Aquinas, 213). It should simply be pointed out that that characterization
of physicalism is not right. That “mental states are implemented in neural stuff” is
merely a necessary but not sufficient condition of physicalism. One can be a substance
dualist and think that mental states are implemented in neural stuff, if one thinks that
emergent substance dualism, for example, is true.
37. Although I should note that I find it plausible to think that Aquinas’s view
entails a kind of property dualism. This will become apparent. One may take my
proposal here to be that Aquinas’s view, in the very least, entails a position that
can broadly be called “property dualism” and that this view is inconsistent with
physicalism.
38. Summa Contra Gentiles, II, 69.
39. Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis, un. 2.
40. Christopher Brown, “Thomas Aquinas,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
available at http://www.iep.utm.edu/aquinas/ (section 7).
41. See Summa Theolgiae, I. Q. 76, a.1, respondeo.
42. Brian Leftow (“Soul, Mind and Brain,”: 395–416), Christina van Dyke (“Not
Properly a Person: The Rational Soul and ‘Thomistic Substance Dualism,’” Faith
and Philosophy 26, no. 2 (2009): 186–204), and Pasnau (Thomas Aquinas on Human
Nature) all put forward arguments to the effect that Aquinas did not think that the soul
was an immaterial substance. For a brief criticism of Pasnau’s argument see Daniel
Hill, “Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature,” British Journal for the History of Philoso-
phy 15, no. 2 (2007): 383–419. The argument put forward in this paper is drawn from
van Dyke, “Not Properly a Person.”
43. Quaestiones Disputatae de Anima, 1.co.
44. See Summa Theologiae, 75.2 ad 3 and 4.
45. See Summa Theologiae, Ia 75.2.
46. I think that Leftow’s “Soul, Mind and Brain” is correct. Just because Aquinas
thinks that the brain is not the “organ of thought” this does not sanction the conclusion
that there is no organ of thought.
47. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 68.
49. See Summa Contra Gentiles, I.44.
50. One might think that Stoljar would affirm the antecedent of this conditional.
Properties instantiated upon intellection are not properties of an intuitively physical
object or objects; namely, corporal matter.
52. The argument made here is a similar to an argument made in Hill’s “Thomas
Aquinas on Human Nature.”
53. I understand that there is a lively and interesting debate between those who
read Aquinas as a corruptionist and those who read Aquinas as a survivalist. Corrup-
tionists read Aquinas as holding that when a human person dies it ceases to exist even
though that human person’s soul continues to exist. Survivalists think that although
the human person is never identical to her soul, she is composed of her soul during
the interim state and so continues to exist. I cannot weigh in on this argument here.
For the sake of the argument, however, in this chapter I will assume that the survival-
ists have it right. This point, however, should not matter too much. If one thinks that
Aquinas was a corruptionist the argument that I put forward can be adjusted slightly.
One can argue that there are mental properties of souls (mere parts of human persons)
that are instantiated during the intermediate state without there being any physical
properties of a human person necessitating them. I take it that the Christian physicalist
would disagree with this thesis too.
54. For a recent sophisticated “survivalist” view I recommend Jeffery E. Brower’s
Aquinas’s Ontology of the Material World: Change, Hylomorphism, and Material
Objects (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
42 Thomas Atkinson
55. I leave it to the reader to reformulate the arguments in this chapter with the
assumption that corruptionists are right.
56. Brown, “Thomas Aquinas,” section 7.
57. Brown, “Thomas Aquinas,” section 7.
58. Summa Theologia, Ia. q. 89, a. 1, ad3.
59. My thanks go to Christopher Brown, Daniel Hill, and Greg Miller for their
helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Contra Gentiles. Translated by James F Anderson. South

Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976.
Brower, Jeffrey E. Aquinas’s Ontology of the Material World: Change, Hylomor-
phism, and Material Objects. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Cross, Richard. “Philosophy of Mind.” In The Cambridge Companion to Duns Sco-
tus, edited by Thomas Williams, 263–84. New York: Cambridge University Press,
2003.
Dyke, Christina van. “Not Properly a Person: The Rational Soul and ‘Thomistic Sub-
stance Dualism.’” Faith and Philosophy 26, no. 2 (2009): 186–204.
Hill, Daniel. “Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature.” British Journal for the History of
Philosophy 15, no. 2 (2007): 383–419.
Leftow, Brian. “Soul, Mind and Brain.” In The Waning of Materialism, edited by
Robert C Koons and George Bealer, 395–416. New York: Oxford University Press,
2010.
Pasnau, Robert. “Olivi on the Metaphysics of Soul.” Medieval Philosophy & Theol-
ogy 6, no. 2 (1997): 109–32.
———. Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature: A Philosophical Study of Summa Theo-
logiae 1a, 75–89. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Pasnau, Robert, and Christopher Shields. The Philosophy of Aquinas. Boulder, CO:
Westview, 2004.
Sharpe, Kevin W. “Thomas Aquinas and Nonreductive Physicalism.” Proceedings of
the American Catholic Philosophical Association 79 (2005): 217–227.
Stoljar, Daniel. Physicalism. New York: Routledge, 2010.
Stump, Eleonore. Aquinas. London: Routledge, 2005.
van Inwagen, Peter. “Dualism and Materialism.” Faith and Philosophy 12, no. 4
(1995): 475–488.
Chapter 3
Substance Dualism and

the Diachronic/Synchronic
Unity of Consciousness
J. P. Moreland
The great Presbyterian scholar, J. Gresham Machen, once observed, “I think

we ought to hold not only that man has a soul, but that it is important that
he should know that he has a soul.”1 From a Christian perspective, this is a
trustworthy saying. Though not unique in this regard, Christianity is a dualist,
interactionist religion in this sense: God, angels and demons, and the souls
of men and beasts are immaterial substances that can causally interact with
the world. Specifically, human persons are (or have) souls that are spiritual
substances that ground personal identity in a disembodied intermediate state
between death and final resurrection.2 Clearly, this was the Pharisees’ view
in Intertestamental Judaism, and Jesus (Matt. 22:23–33; cf. Matt. 10:28) and
Paul (Acts 23:6–10; cf. 2 Cor. 12:1–4) side with the Pharisees on this issue
over against the Sadducees.3
Besides biblical teaching, property and substance dualism are the com-
mon-sense views held by the overwhelming number of humankind now and
throughout history. As Charles Taliaferro points out, this is widely acknowl-
edged by physicalists, including Michael Levin, Daniel Dennett, David
Lewis, Thomas Nagel, J. J. C. Smart, Richard Rorty, Donald Davidson, and
Colin McGinn.4 Throughout history, most people have been substance and
property dualists and most of them had no exposure to Greek thought. Thus,
regarding the mind/body problem, Jaegwon Kim’s concession seems right:
“We commonly think that we, as persons, have a mental and bodily dimen-
sion. . . . Something like this dualism of personhood, I believe, is common lore
shared across most cultures and religious traditions.”5 And regarding issues in
personal identity, Frank Jackson acknowledges, “I take it that our folk con-
ception of personal identity is Cartesian in character—in particular, we regard
the question of whether I will be tortured tomorrow as separable from the
question of whether someone with any amount of continuity—psychological,
43
44 J. P. Moreland
bodily, neurophysiological, and so on and so forth—with me today will be

tortured.”6
People do not have to be taught to be dualists like they must if they are
to be physicalists. Indeed, little children are naturally dualists. Summing up
the recent research in developmental psychology, Henry Wellman states that
“young children are dualists: knowledgeable of mental states and entities
as ontologically different from physical objects and real [non-imaginary]
events.”7
Given all this, one would think that everyone would be a property and
substance dualist, or at least, every Christian would be one. But this is obvi-
ously not the case. So, in what follows, I want to show the inadequacy of
physicalism regarding the bearer and unifier of consciousness, and the superi-
ority of substance dualism in this regard. I will focus on three specific issues:
(1) the irrelevance of neuroscience for grasping the nature and existence of
consciousness and the soul; (2) the diachronic identity of the human person
and the inadequacy of physicalism to account for it; (3) the nature and real-
ity of the synchronic unity of consciousness and its ontological implications.
THE IRRELEVANCE OF NEUROSCIENCE FOR

GRASPING THE NATURE AND EXISTENCE
OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SOUL
Since this volume addresses questions about the adequacy of Christian physi-
calism, it is obvious that some Christian thinkers have rejected the common-
sense and historical Christian view (substance dualism of some form) in favor
of a physicalist alternative. So far as I can tell, the main reason for the change
of viewpoint is the idea that it is somehow required by advances in neurosci-
ence. Thus, according to Nancey Murphy, “science has provided a massive
amount of evidence suggesting that we need not postulate the existence of
an entity such as a soul or mind in order to explain life and consciousness.”8
This evidence consists of the fact that “biology, neuroscience, and cognitive
science have provided accounts of the dependence on physical processes of
specific faculties once attributed to the soul.”9 Elsewhere, she claims: “My
argument in brief is this: all of the human capacities once attributed to the
mind or soul are now being fruitfully studied as brain processes—or, more
accurately, I should say, processes involving the brain, the rest of the ner-
vous system and other bodily systems, all interacting with the socio-cultural
world.”10 Murphy acknowledges that “dualism cannot be proven false—a
dualist can always appeal to correlations or functional relations between
soul and brain/body—but advances in science make it a view with little
justification.”11
Substance Dualism and the Diachronic/Synchronic Unity of Consciousness 45
Addressing these claims is not the main purpose of this chapter. Neverthe-
less, I think something should be said in response, even if briefly, so the rest
of the chapter can be taken more seriously. Murphy’s appeal to neuroscience
as justification for physicalism is constituted by two claims: (1) the evidence
of neuroscience provides accounts of the dependence on physical processes
of specific faculties once attributed to the soul. So, it is the specificity of these
physical processes that makes it highly unlikely that the work is being done
by mental faculties of the soul. (2) We no longer need to postulate a soul to
explain life and consciousness because all the capacities once attributed to it
are now being fruitfully studied as physical processes in the brain. So, physi-
cal brain processes have co-opted the role soulish capacities used to play.
I would like to address these in order. Regarding (1), a dualist can only
scratch his/her head at this assertion. What, exactly, is supposed to be the
problem here? It cannot be that we now know that the neurological correla-
tions involve specific regions of the brain. As C. Stephen Evans notes regard-
ing the findings of localization studies:
What, exactly, is it about these findings that are supposed to create problems for
dualism? [ . . . ] Is it a problem that the causal effects should be the product of
specific regions of the brain? Why should the fact that the source of the effects is
localized regions of the brain, rather than the brain as a whole, be a problem for
the dualist? It is hard for me to see why dualism should be thought to entail that
the causal dependence of the mind on the brain should only stem from holistic
states of the brain rather than more localized happenings.12
In his 1886 lectures on the limitations of scientific materialism, John Tyndall

claimed that “the chasm between the two classes of phenomena is of such
a nature that we might establish empirical association between them, but it
would still remain intellectually impassable. Let the consciousness of love,
for example, be associated with a right-handed spiral motion of the molecules
in the brain, and the consciousness of hate with a left-handed spiral motion.
We should then know when we love that the motion is in one direction, and
when we hate that the motion is in the other; but the ‘WHY’ would remain
as unanswerable as before .”13 Nothing substantial has changed since Tyndall
made this remark. Specifically, no advance in knowledge of the specificity of
detail regarding the correlations between mental and physical states provides
any evidence against dualism. Aquinas knew that brain damage affected
mental functioning. We have just added more details to what has always been
known.
Regarding (2), many substance dualists do not believe in a substantial
ego primarily because it is a theoretical postulate with superior explanatory
power, certainly not superior scientific explanatory power. Rather, they take
the ego to be something of which people are directly aware. Thus, for many
46 J. P. Moreland
dualists, belief in a substantial, simple soul is properly basic and grounded in

self-awareness. Substance dualism is not a theory that could in principle be
replaced by a better one.
Moreover, the neuroscientific empirical discovery of such correlations
(causal or dependency relations both ways) provides no evidence whatsoever
for physicalism. Indeed, the central issues regarding the mind—what is a
thought, feeling, or belief; what is that to which my self is identical—are
basically common-sense and philosophical issues for which scientific discov-
eries are largely irrelevant. Science is helpful in answering questions about
what factors in the brain and body generally hinder or cause mental states
to obtain, but science is largely silent about the nature of mental properties/
states. Indeed, neuroscience must assume the common-sense nothing of the
mental made aware to first-person introspection since neuroscientific correla-
tions ultimately depend on first-person reports.
To see the basic irrelevance of empirical data, consider the following. We
have discovered that if a certain type of neuron—mirror neurons—is dam-
aged, then one cannot feel empathy for another. How are we to understand
this? To answer this question, we need to get before our minds the notion
of empirically equivalent theories. If two or more theories are empirically
equivalent, then they are consistent with all and only the same set of empiri-
cal observations. Thus, an appeal to empirical data cannot be made in favor
of one of such theories over the others.
Three empirically equivalent solutions to the discovery of the function of
mirror neurons come to mind: (1) strict physicalism (a feeling of empathy is
identical to something physical, for example, the firings of mirror neurons);
(2) mere property dualism (a feeling of empathy is an irreducible state of
consciousness in the brain whose obtaining depends on the firing of mirror
neurons); (3) substance dualism (a feeling of empathy is an irreducible state
of consciousness in the soul whose obtaining depends (while embodied) on
the firing of mirror neurons).
Of these three, no empirical datum can pick which is correct, nor does an
appeal to epistemic simplicity help. This is why three Nobel Prize winners
working in neuroscience and related fields—John Eccles (substance dualist),
Roger Sperry (mere property dualist), and Francis Crick (strict physicalist)
could hold different ontologies regarding consciousness and the self even
though they all knew the same neuroscientific data. Epistemic simplicity
is a tie-breaker, and the substance dualist will insist that the arguments and
evidence for substance dualism are better than those for the other two options
mentioned earlier. Murphy implicitly acknowledges this when she admits that
“dualism cannot be proven false—a dualist can always appeal to correlations
or functional relations between soul and brain/body.” But she apparently does
not realize that this admission provides a defeater for her conclusion that
“advances in science make it a view with little justification.”
THE DIACHRONIC IDENTITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON AND

THE INADEQUACY OF PHYSICALISM TO ACCOUNT FOR IT
So much for my view of the relevance of neuroscience regarding the crucial

metaphysical topics before us. In this section, I turn to two issues that are
supported by widespread, common-sense intuitions and by a classic, histori-
cal understanding of Christianity: diachronic identity and libertarian free will,
and diachronic identity and personal responsibility.
Diachronic Identity, Physicalism, and Libertarian Free Will

Why are libertarian intuitions so pervasive that they clearly constitute the
common-sense default position? Indeed, everyone is a libertarian unless
their ideology requires them to embrace compatibilism. I think it is because
through first-person introspection, people the world over are simply directly
aware of themselves exercising active power in bringing about the effects
they endeavor to achieve. When one sees a hammer driving a nail into lum-
ber, they don’t just see the hammer moving followed by the nail moving.
They also perceive the hammer-moving-the-nail. Similarly, we are directly
aware of our own endeavoring-to-raise-our-arm-in-order-to-vote. On the
basis of such awarenesses, we form the properly basic belief that we exercise
originative, free, active power for the sake of teleological goals.
Shortly, I shall unpack the formal elements of a libertarian view of free will
that I take to be true and most obvious.14 Most philosophers are agreed that
libertarian freedom and a theory of agency it entails are incompatible with
the generally accepted depiction of physicalism. Thus, Roderick Chisholm
claimed that “in one very strict sense of the terms, there can be no science of
man.”15 Along similar lines, John Searle says that “our conception of physi-
cal reality simply does not allow for radical [libertarian] freedom.”16 And if
moral (and intellectual) responsibility has such freedom as a necessary con-
dition, then reconciling the natural and ethical perspectives is impossible. In
what may be the best naturalist attempt to accomplish such a reconciliation,
John Bishop frankly admits that “the idea of a responsible agent, with the
‘originative’ ability to initiate events in the natural world, does not sit easily
with the idea of [an agent as] a natural organism. . . . Our scientific under-
standing of human behavior seems to be in tension with a presupposition of
the ethical stance we adopt toward it.”17
48 J. P. Moreland
Stated formally, a person, P, exercises libertarian agency and freely per-

forms some intentional act, e, just in case 1) P is a substance that has the
active power to bring about e; 2) P exerted his/her active power as a first,
unmoved mover (an “originator”) to bring about e; 3) P had the categorical
ability to refrain from exerting his/her power to bring about e; 4) P acted for
the sake of reasons which serve as the final cause or teleological goal for
which P acted. Taken alone, 1–3 state necessary and sufficient conditions for
a pure voluntary act, for example, freely directing my eyes toward a specific
desk upon entering a room. Propositions 1–4 state necessary and sufficient
conditions for an intentional act, that is, a voluntary act done for a reason (for
example, raising my hand to vote).
There are five features of a free act that makes it difficult and, indeed, vir-
tually impossible to reconcile with a strictly physicalist standpoint. First, the
free agent is a substance and not an event, a bundle of events or an ordered
aggregate of separable parts. But according to physicalists, all causes and
effects are events. The laws of nature govern causal processes in which a
temporal state (an event) of an object (an electron, water molecule, storm
cloud, location or temperature of the earth) brings about a different temporal
state (a subsequent event) according to a natural law.
This is called “event-event causation” and it is the only sort of efficient
cause recognized in physics, chemistry, geology, biology, neuroscience or
other physicalistically certified hard sciences. Event-event causation governs
changes of state in or among objects—nothing more, nothing less. Substances
as substances—essentially characterized particulars, substantial things—do
not cause things. Strictly speaking, it is not the first billiard ball that moves
the second. It is the moving-of-the-first-ball (the causal event) that causes the
moving-of-the-second-ball (the effect event).
By contrast, it is the agent as a substantial self or I, not some state in the
agent, that brings about a free act. By “substance” I mean a member of a natu-
ral kind, an essentially characterized particular that sustains absolute sameness
through (accidental) change and that possesses a primitive unity of insepa-
rable parts (a.k.a., modes), properties, and capacities/powers at a time. This
strong view of substance is required for libertarian agency for at least three
reasons: (1) libertarian agency is possible only if there is a distinction between
the capacity to act or refrain from acting and the agent that possesses those
capacities. (2) The type of unity present among the various capacities pos-
sessed by an agent is the type of unity (that is, a diversity of capacities within
an ontologically prior whole) that is entailed by the classic Aristotelian notion
of substance. (3) Ordinary free acts take time and include subacts as parts, and
an enduring agent is what gives unity to such acts by being the same self who
is present at the beginning of the action as intentional agent, during the act as
teleological guider of means to ends, and at the end as responsible actor.
But this is not countenanced by physicalism. Thus, naturalist John Bishop

frankly admits, “the problem of natural agency is an ontological problem—
a problem about whether the existence of actions can be admitted within
a natural [i.e., physicalist for Bishop] scientific perspective. . . . [A]gent
causal-relations do not belong to the ontology of the natural perspective.
Naturalism does not essentially employ the concept of a causal relation
whose first member is in the category of person or agent (or even, for that
matter, in the broader category of continuant or ‘substance’). All natural
causal relations have first members in the category of event or state of
affairs.”18
Second, the ontology of physicalism knows nothing of active powers. The
particulars that populate that ontology are, one and all, exhaustively charac-
terized by passive liabilities with regard to their causal powers. A passive
liability is such that, given the proper efficient cause, it is and, indeed, must
be actualized. As such, the actualization of a passive liability is a passive hap-
pening, not an action. This fact about passive liabilities is what makes them,
along with their causes, fitting entities for subsumption under law. And it is
precisely as passive and so subsumable that makes their owners bereft of the
sort of first-moving, active spontaneity that is a necessary condition for the
exercise of free will.
All physical objects with causal powers possess them as passive liabilities.
Again, these liabilities are triggered or actualized if something happens to the
object and, once triggered, they can produce an effect. For example, dynamite
has the power (passive liability) to explode if something is first done to it.
And so on for all causes. They are, one and all, passive potentialities. Their
actualizations are mere happenings to the relevant object.
But active power is different. In virtue of possessing active power, an agent
may act, initiate change or motion, perform something, bring about an effect
with nothing causing it to do so. Active power is not something admitted in
the ontology of the hard sciences, period.
Third, a “first mover” is a substance which has active power. As such, it is
the absolute originator of its actions. It is not just another caused cause, just
one more event (or bundle of events) in a chain of events in which earlier
causes bring about later effects which, in turn, bring about later effects to
form one big series of passive happenings governed by natural law. No, a first
mover is not subject to laws in its initiation of action. Since such an initiation
is a first, spontaneous, action not caused by a prior event, it amounts to the
absolute origination of initiatory movement. Such an origination comes into
being instantaneously and spontaneously, and while the effect it produces (for
example, the earliest stages in the raising of one’s arm) may well be subject
to natural laws, the initiating event is not since there is nothing prior to its
coming-to-be on which a law may operate. Moreover, such a first mover is
50 J. P. Moreland
an unmoved mover, that is, it has the power to bring about an action without
having to change first before it can so act.
By contrast, since all events in a physicalist ontology are passive happen-
ings, they all are examples of moved movers, that is, something has to hap-
pen to an object first, namely an event that triggers and actualizes its causal
powers, before it can cause something else to happen. In this sense, all strictly
physicalist causation involves changed changers. But a first mover can pro-
duce change without having to change first to do so. It should be obvious why
such an agent is not an object that can be located in a physicalist ontology.
Unmoved movers are quintessentially nonphysical!
Fourth, the notion of “categorical ability” in (3) has two important aspects
to it. First, it expresses the type of ability possessed by a first mover that can
exercise active power and, as such, it contrasts with the conditional ability
employed by compatibilists. Second, categorical ability is a dual ability: if
one has the ability to exert his power to do (or will to do) A, then one also
has the ability to refrain from exerting his power to do (or to will to do) A.
This means that the circumstances within (for example, motives, desires, rea-
sons) and outside (environmental conditions) the agent at the time of action
are not sufficient to determine that or fix the chances of the action taking
place. Given those circumstances, the agent can either exercise or refrain
from exercising his/her active power, and this ability is the essential, causal
factor for what follows. Among other things, this implies that libertarian acts
cannot be subsumed under natural laws, whether construed as deterministic
or probabilistic.
But all the particulars in the physicalist ontology are so subsumable. In
fact, all of them are subject to diachronic and synchronic determinism in the
following sense: regarding diachronic determinism, at some time, t, the phys-
ical conditions are sufficient to determine or fix the chances of the next event
involving the object and its environment. Regarding synchronic determinism,
at any time, t, the object’s states and movements are determined or have their
chances fixed by the microphysical states of the object and its environment.
This latter determination is bottom-up.
Fifth, (4) expresses a view of reasons as irreducible, teleological goals for
the sake of which a person acts. In general, we may characterize this by say-
ing that person S F’d (for example, went to the kitchen) in order to Y (for
example, get coffee or satisfy S’s desire for coffee). This characterization of
action, according to (4), cannot be reduced to a causal theory of action that
utilizes belief/desire event causation such that reasons amount to efficient
causes (or causal conditions) for action. To see this, consider these two
sentences:
1. The water boiled because it was heated.

2. Smith went to the kitchen because he wanted to get coffee.
(1) is a straightforwardly (efficient) causal assertion. The event cited after

“because” (the water’s being heated) is the efficient cause for the water’s
boiling). But while grammatically similar, (2) doesn’t employ reasons as
causes. This can be seen by paraphrasing (2) as follows:
(2) Smith went to the kitchen in order to get coffee.
Here, getting coffee is the goal, purpose, end of Smith’s free action. Every
step he takes (getting out of his chair, walking toward the kitchen, opening
the pantry) are means to this end.
If there is anything that physicalists agree upon, it is that there is no such
thing as teleology. Matter is mechanistic, not in the sense that it only engages
in action by contact and is bereft of forces, but in that it only behaves accord-
ing to chains of efficient causes. As philosophers Joshua Hoffman and Gary
Rosenkrantz note, attempts to slap teleology onto a naturalist framework
really amount to abandonments of naturalism:
Aristotle’s account [of natural function and teleology] does not provide a natu-
ralistic reduction of natural function in terms of efficient causation. Nor do char-
acterizations of natural function in terms of an irreducibly emergent purposive
principle, or an unanalyzable emergent property associated with the biological
phenomenon of life, provide such a reduction. Theistic and vitalistic approaches
that try to explicate natural function in terms of the intentions of an intelligent
purposive agent or principle are also nonnaturalistic. Another form of nonnatu-
ralism attempts to explicate natural function in terms of nonnatural evaluative
attributes such as intrinsic goodness. . . . We do not accept the anti-reductionist
and anti-naturalistic theories about natural function listed above. Without enter-
ing into a detailed critique of these ideas, one can see that they either posit imma-
terial entities whose existence is in doubt, or make it utterly mysterious how it
can be true that a part of an organic living thing manifests a natural function. . . .
[T]he theoretical unity of biology would be better served if the natural functions
of the parts of organic life-forms could be given a reductive account completely
in terms of nonpurposive or nonfunctional naturalistic processes or conditions.19
For these reasons, the ontology of libertarian agency and the diachronic
unity/identity it entails are inconsistent with a common-sense and biblically
respectable view of free agency. Of course, if one is a compatibilist, this sec-
tion may have no relevance to that person. But it seems to me that more and
more Christian philosophers and philosophically informed theologians are
embracing libertarianism. If so, they need to think carefully about the ontol-
ogy in which such a move is intelligible.
Diachronic Personal Identity and the Inadequacy of Physicalism to

Account for It
If anything about Christianity is self-evident it would be the idea that a
number of its entailments—especially those about punishment/rewards for
52 J. P. Moreland
past actions and punishment/rewards in the future judgment—require human

persons to be literal continuants who sustain absolute identity through their
lives. Their diachronic “identity” is not partial, arbitrary or conventional.
It cannot be reduced to mere sortal dependent persistence conditions. The
Christian view of punishment and rewards makes sense only if it really is I
myself who did such and such an act in the past, who now is contemplating
my past and future, and who will be punished or rewarded in the future for
that (and other) past act(s). As Geoffrey Madell noted long ago, if absolute
diachronic personal identity is set aside, “then the notion of responsibility for
past wrong loses its foundation. . . . [O]ur present notion of responsibility
wold be destroyed.”20
Unfortunately, I do not believe there is a physicalist view of the human
person (or animal) that can avoid rejecting absolute diachronic identity and
putting in its place some weaker relation constituted by persistence condi-
tions, even sortal dependent ones, that fails to ground and comport with the
metaphysical entailments of the Christian view.
To see why strict identity is not an option for the extant versions of physi-
calism, consider the following argument:
1. If something is a physical object composed of parts, it does not survive

over time as the same object if it comes to have different parts.
2. My body and brain (or subregion of the brain) are physical objects com-
posed of parts.
3. Therefore, my body and brain do not survive over time as the same object
if they come to have different parts.
4. My body and brain are constantly coming to have different parts.
5. Therefore, my body and brain do not survive over time as the same object.
6. I do survive over time as the same object.
7. Therefore, I am not my body or my brain.
8. I am either a soul or a body or a brain.
9. Therefore, I am a soul.
Premise (2) is commonsensically true, given the scientific image. Premise

(4) is obviously true as well. Our bodies and brains are constantly gaining
new cells and losing old ones, or at least, gaining new atoms and molecules
and losing old ones. So understood, bodies and brains are in constant flux. I
will assume that (8) represents the only live options for most ordinary people.
This leaves premises (1) and (6). I am granting (6) as the common-sense and
Christian requirement for the intelligibility of responsibility for past acts and
future rewards or punishments.
That leaves us with (1). Why should we believe that ordinary material
objects composed of parts do not remain the same through part replacement?21
To see why this makes sense, let’s start with some simple illustrations: Con-
sider five scattered boards, a–e, each located in a different person’s back
yard. Commonsensically, it doesn’t seem like the boards form an object.
They are just isolated boards. Now, suppose we collected those boards and
put them in a pile with the boards touching each other. We would now have,
let us suppose, an object called a pile or heap of boards. The heap is a weak
object, indeed, and the only thing unifying it would be the spatial relation-
ships between and among a–e. They are in close proximity and are touching
each other. Now, suppose we took board b away and replaced it with a new
board f to form a new heap consisting of a, c–f. Would our new heap be the
same as the original heap? Clearly not, because the heap just is the boards and
their relationships to each other, and we have new boards and a new set of
relationships. What if we increased the number of boards in the heap to 1000?
If we now took one board away and replaced it with a new board, we would
still get a new heap. The number of boards does not matter.
Now imagine that we nailed our original boards a–e together into a make-
shift raft. In this situation, the boards are rigidly connected such that they do
not move relative to each other; instead, they all move together if we pick up
our raft. If we now took board b away and replaced it with board f, we would
still get a new object. It may seem odd, but if we took board b away and later
put it back, we would still have a new raft because the raft is a collection of
parts and bonding relationships to each other. Thus, even though the new raft
would still have the same parts (a–e), there would be new bonding relation-
ships between b and the board or boards to which it is attached.
We cannot go beyond these simple illustrations and put the argument in a
more precise, technical way. Premise (1) expresses a commitment to mereo-
logical essentialism for physical objects composed of separable parts. Why is
mereological essentialism a problem for virtually all versions of physicalism
besides those who identify us with an atomic simple? Because, at the end of
the day, these versions of physicalism identify us as mereological aggregates,
and mereological essentialism cannot be avoided for such wholes (if there are
such wholes.)
Here is a definition of a mereological aggregate: it is a particular whole
that is constituted by (at least) separable parts and external relation-instances
between and among those separable parts (there is a debate as to whether or
not one should add an additional constituent, such as a surface or boundary
to the analysis). Mereological aggregates are very different to genuine Aris-
totelian substances. Jonathan Schaffer characterizes the difference in terms of
grounding (ontological dependency or priority):
The notion of grounding may be put to further use to capture a crucial mereologi-
cal distinction (missing from classical mereology) between an integrated whole
54 J. P. Moreland
which exhibits a genuine unity, and a mere aggregate which is a random assem-
blage of parts. Thus, Aristotle speaks of “that which is compounded out of some-
thing so that the whole is one—not like a heap, however, but like a syllable.”
(1984: 1644; Meta.1041b11–2). This intuitive distinction may be defined via:
Integrated whole: x is an integrated whole =df x grounds each of its proper parts.
Mere aggregate: x is a mere aggregate =df each of x’s proper parts ground x.22
Shaffer’s integrated whole and mere aggregate are the same as my sub-
stance and mereological or ordered aggregate, respectively. Later, we shall
see that the “proper parts” of a mere aggregate are separable parts and those
of an integrated whole are inseparable parts/modes.
Why think that mereological essentialism characterizes mereological
aggregates? Because a proper metaphysical analysis of such wholes does not
provide an entity adequate to ground their literal identity through part altera-
tion. To see this, suppose we have some mereological aggregate W, say a car,
in the actual world, w, at some time, t, and let “the ps” refer distributively
to all and only the atomic simples (assuming such) that make up W. Now,
given that the ps just are a specific list of simples taken distributively without
regard to structure, it would seem obvious that if we have a different list of
simples, the qs, it is not identical to the ps even if the two lists share all but
one part in common. This same insight would be true if we took “the ps” and
“the qs” collectively as referring to some sort of mereological sum. In either
case, there is no entity “over and above” the parts or sum members that could
serve as a ground of sameness through part alteration.
Now, W has different diachronic identity conditions than, and, thus, is not
identical to the ps. W could be destroyed and the ps (taken in either sense)
could exist. Let S stand for all and only the various relations that stand
between and among the ps. S is W’s structure. Is W identical to S and the ps?
I don’t think so. W has its own structure, say in comparison to some other
whole W* that is exactly similar in structure to W. W and W* have their own
structures. Given that S is a universal, it is not sufficient for individuating W’s
specific structure. For that we need SI, W’s structure-instance, W’s token of
S and SI will consist of all and only the specific relation-instances that are
instantiated between and among the ps.
Let “the rs” stand for all and only the relevant relation-instances that
compose SI. I think it is now obvious that SI is a mereological aggregate
composed of the rs. If the rs undergo a change of relation-instances, it is no
longer the same list of relation-instances. Given that SI just is a mereological
aggregate or, perhaps, a specific ordering of the rs, if the rs undergo a change
of relation-instances, SI will cease to exist and a different structure (perhaps
exactly similar to SI) will obtain since there is no entity to serve as a ground
for SI’s sameness through part replacement. If W is the ps plus SI, it seems
to follow that W is subject to mereological-essentialist constraints. Adding a

surface/boundary to W won’t help avoid these constraints.
Now, consider our bodies and brains and assume they are mere physical
objects composed of billions of parts. From our daily vantage point—the
manifest image—they appear to be solid, continuous objects. But if we could
shrink down to the level of an atom, we would see that, in reality, they are like
a cloud—gappy, largely containing empty space and composed of billions
of atoms (molecules, cells) that stand in various external (bonding) relation-
instances between and among those parts. If we were to take a part away and
replace it, we would have a new object, assuming there is an object there in
the first place. The body and brain are mereological aggregates. Besides the
parts and the relation-instances between and among them, there is nothing
in the body or brain to ground its ability to remain the same through part
alteration.
This is the fundamental insight behind the claim that the body and brain
cannot remain the same if there is part alteration.23 Since the body and brain
are constantly changing parts and relationships, they are not the same from
one moment to the next in a strict philosophical sense (though, for practical
day-to-day purposes, we regard them as the same in a loose, popular sense.)
Thus, physicalist views that identify us with our bodies or brains (and adding
lives or psychological criteria won’t help because these are constantly in flux
just as much as bodies and brains) fail to ground the strict diachronic iden-
tity of human persons that is the ground of deeply ingrained intuitions about
rewards and punishment and of the Christian view of such.
THE NATURE AND REALITY OF THE

SYNCHRONIC UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS24
Perhaps more than anyone else in the literature, Tim Bayne and David
Chalmers have thought carefully about the synchronic unity of consciousness
(hereafter, simply the unity of consciousness), although in my view, Bayne
is the chief current thinker on these matters. They distinguish several differ-
ent types of unified consciousness, but only three of them are relevant to my
present concerns.25 To understand these, I should point out that a phenomenal
conscious state, ϕ, is one such that there is a what-it-is-like to be in ϕ.
The Types of Consciousness’s Unity

First, there is objectual phenomenal unity. Two or more states are so unified
if they are experienced as being of the same object. For example, the state of
feeling a desk and the state of seeing the desk’s color, or the state of seeing
56 J. P. Moreland
the desk’s shape and seeing its color are objectually phenomenally unified
just in case they are experienced as being of the same object, the desk. This
type of unity generates the binding problem. How is it that we experience, say
perceptually, separate pieces of information as bound together in pertaining
to the same object?
Second, there is subject phenomenal unity. This occurs when all of one’s
phenomenal states are had by the same subject. According to Bayne and
Chalmers, this sort of unity is irrelevant for investigating the nature of con-
sciousness’s unity because it is trivially true by definition and tells us nothing
about consciousness. Unfortunately, this claim is all too convenient for Bayne
because without it his own solution, as we shall see below, is not intellectu-
ally motivated. Moreover, it is just plain false. Many thinkers, including
Bayne himself, believe there is no self or subject that unifies consciousness.
And some thinkers like me think that a simple self or soul is the best explana-
tion for the unity of consciousness, especially when a careful metaphysical
account is given for how conscious states are in the self in the first place.
More on this later.
Third, there is subsumptive phenomenal unity. Two (or more) states are
subsumptively phenomenally unified just in case there is something it is like
to be in both states simultaneously and conjointly. All of one’s phenomenal
states are subsumed within a single (totalizing) phenomenal state. Bayne and
Chalmers insist, rightly in my view, that one’s total phenomenal field is not
built up atomistically as a complex conjunction of individual phenomenal
states. Rather, one’s totalizing state is a whole, and the various individual
phenomenal states are aspects of that ontologically prior whole.
For example, suppose you are having two different phenomenal experi-
ences—an awareness of ϕ and an awareness of ψ. Then there will be a total-
izing state, T, in its own right with its own what-it-is-like to be in T. T is
“over and above” and not merely an atomistic conjunction of the two aware-
nesses of φ and ψ, taken individually. According to Bayne and Chalmers,
any subject of experience will have a single, total phenomenal state at a point
in time.26 Coming from a different direction, Cleeremans makes roughly the
same point this way: “[There is] the intuitive idea that consciousness requires
unity of consciousness, that is, that there is no sense in which one could
simultaneously have separate conscious experiences that failed to present
themselves as integrated in a single phenomenal field.”27
Bayne and Chalmers go on to formulate what they call the Total Phenom-
enal Unity Thesis: necessarily, the set of all phenomenal states of a subject
at a time is phenomenally unified.28 According to them, this thesis captures
the central insight behind unity of consciousness: there is always a single
phenomenal state that subsumes all of one’s phenomenal states at a time, and
this state is one’s totalizing phenomenal state.
It is worth briefly making two observations. First, the necessity of the Total
Phenomenal Unity Thesis should be explained (if possible) and not taken as
a primitive. Second, the notion of subsumption wherein one state subsumes
another is unclear to say the least. Bayne and Chalmers claim that it is “some-
thing of an intuitive primitive.”29 In my view, this is an unfortunate situation,
and if we can ground the totalizing unity of consciousness in a clearer, meta-
physically available entity, then we should seek to do that.
In sum, these three sorts of unity are all relevant to what follows. Indeed, I
will try to show that proper analysis of one of these theses provides the solu-
tion to the other two. In any case, when speaking of the unity of conscious-
ness, I will use the specific thesis that I have in mind.
The Unity of Consciousness as a Defeater for Physicalism

about the “Self”
As we shall see, the unity of consciousness presents a significant difficulty for
physicalism regarding the possessor of consciousness: given such physical-
ism, the various entities to which a human person is identical—the organism,
the brain, an object constituted by an organism, a 4-dimensional physical
object synchronically composed of its physical parts and diachronically com-
posed of its stages—do not have the sort of unity needed to account for or
ground the unity of consciousness because they are all mereological aggre-
gates. Rather, the best explanation/ground for the unity of consciousness is a
simple (not composed of separable parts) soul.
More than anyone else, William Hasker has championed this argument for
substance dualism.30 To remind us of what we noted earlier, by the unity of
consciousness, say, of one’s visual field, I mean (at least) two things. First,
there is what Bayne and Chalmers call subsumptive phenomenal unity: all of
one’s experiences are subsumed within a single, totalizing state of conscious-
ness. This totalizing state is a conscious state in its own right, and there is a
what-it-is-like to be in that state.31 The Total Phenomenal Unity Thesis says
that, necessarily, there is always a single phenomenal state that subsumes all
of one’s other phenomenal states at a time.
The notion of “subsuming” is a bit unclear, so let me state the second thing
I mean by the unity of consciousness, also from Bayne, and add my own
metaphysical clarification to it. According to Bayne, an atomistic theory of
consciousness states that the phenomenal field is composed of “atoms of con-
sciousness”— independent conscious states.32 Among other things, this would
mean that one’s field of consciousness is like a mereological aggregate—it
contains and is built up by separable parts (“atoms of consciousness”)—
placed into various external relation-instances which constituted the field’s
structure—a mereological aggregate of relation-instances.33
58 J. P. Moreland
By contrast, Bayne—and I—accept holism: the components of the phe-

nomenal field are conscious only as components of that field (it is interesting
to note that diachronically, consciousness changes as a continuous flow, but
the brain changes states in a discrete, atomistic way). I add the qualification
that the phenomenal field is a whole in which subsumptive components are
modes or inseparable parts of something—either the whole field, or much
more likely, of the grounding entity for subsumptive unity.
Now consider the following principle:
(F) For any complex object (one with a plurality of separable parts) O, if O
performs function F, then O’s performing function F consists in parts p1–pn and
subfunctions/activities f1–fn, such that p1 performs f1 . . . pn performs fn.
For example, a computer performing function F just is a certain set of its

parts performing their own subfunctions. Principle F can also be stated in
terms of properties such that an object, O, having some property, P, consists
in each part having some property or other. This is clearly the case with addi-
tive properties, for example, mass. It does not, however, rule out emergent
properties. Given the reasonable assumption that supervenience for simple,
emergent properties is local (the supervenient simple property obtains and is
dependent on what is going on right there at the subvenient base), the prin-
ciple disallows emergent properties exemplified by complex objects like O
taken as an irreducible whole. But it does not disallow each of the relevant
parts of O to have an emergent property as long as these parts are mereologi-
cal simples.
The following argument, then, is an attempt to show that the unity of con-
sciousness cannot be explained if one is a brain (or any of the other naturalist
candidates mentioned earlier), because a brain is just an aggregate of different
physical (separable) parts. It is only if the self is a single, simple subject that
we have an adequate account for the unity of consciousness.
To illustrate, consider one’s awareness of a complex fact, say one’s own
visual field consisting of awareness of several objects at once, including a
number of different surface areas of each object. One’s entire visual field
contains several different experiences, for example, being aware of a desk
toward one’s left side and being aware of a podium in the center of one’s
visual experience of an entire classroom. Corresponding to such an experi-
ence, numerous different light waves bounce off different objects (and off
different locations on the surface of the same object, say different areas of the
desk’s top side), they all interact with the subject’s retinas, and they all spark
signals that terminate in a myriad of locations in the brain, breaking objects
down into constituents.34 If we add local emergence, then we could hold that
each relevant part of the brain instantiates an atomistic sensory experience.
Accordingly, a physicalist may claim that such a unified awareness of the

entire room by means of one’s visual field consists in a number of different
physical parts of the brain each terminating a different wavelength, each of
which is aware only of part—not the whole—of the complex fact (the entire
room). But this cannot account for the single, unitary awareness of the entire
visual field. There is a what-it-is-like to have the whole visual field. If we
terminate our search for an explanation for this with a holistic phenomenal
field, then two problems arise. First, it is hard to see how a myriad of atomis-
tic parts could give rise to a single, nonatomistic, holistic field; we are owed
an account of this within the constraints of subject physicalism.
Second, a basic datum of our experience is not simply this or that item of
awareness in the room, but that I have and am not identical to the totalizing
state. In the history of philosophy, classic substances have served to unify
things in this way, and Hasker and LaRock believe this ontology provides
the best answer for how we could have a totalizing, unified field of con-
sciousness. The very same substantial soul is aware of the desk to the left,
the podium at the center, and, indeed, each and every distinguishable aspect
of the room. But no single part of the brain is correspondingly activated as a
terminus for the entire visual fields. Only a single, uncomposed mental sub-
stance can adequately account for the unity of one’s visual field or, indeed,
the unity of consciousness in general.
The most prominent physicalist rejoinder attempts to explain objectual
phenomenal unity in terms of synchronicity: all the different locations of
the brain processing electrical signals associated with different aspects of
the object of perception (for example, color, size, shape, etc.) fire together
at the very same time, and this explains objectual unity. Unfortunately, a
growing amount of empirical evidence refutes this thesis.35 And, philo-
sophically, the connection between synchronicity and objectual unity is
unclear. Consider LaRock’s analogy: “If five chefs are located in separate
kitchens and each chef is consciously aware of only part of the same recipe,
it does not follow that any one chef is consciously aware of the recipe as
a whole—even if all of the chefs are consciously aware of their respective
recipe parts at the same time.”36 The synchronicity solution, then, fails to
be adequate.
What, If Anything, Grounds the Three Types of Unity, Especially

Subsumptive Phenomenal Unity?
As I mentioned earlier, the leading thinker on these matters is Tim Bayne.
Because of this, and due to space limitations, I will focus my attention on
Bayne’s approach,37 explain why I think it is inadequate, and provide what I
take to be a better solution.38
60 J. P. Moreland
As Bayne sees it, there are three roles the unifier of consciousness (which
he calls the self or subject of experience) must play: (1) Ownership—that
which has conscious experiences. (2) Referential—objects of I-thoughts
involved in first-person reflection. (3) Perspectival—“selves” have a perspec-
tive, a first-person point of view. In my view, there are other key roles for
the self (for example, being the agent of libertarian acts, being that which
is [metaphysically] possibly disembodied), but since, with qualifications, I
accept Bayne’s three, I shall not quibble with his list. However, I do want to
make a few brief comments about it. Regarding (1), there should be a clear,
plausible metaphysical analysis of the sort of “having” it involves. Regard-
ing (2), it should be expanded to say that it is not only the object of the self-
referring use of “I” but also that which employs “I” to self-refer. I also think it
is question-begging at this early stage of analysis to use “I-thoughts” to char-
acterize the nature of the role of reference the unifier must satisfy. Regarding
(3), it is unclear what metaphysical notion of “having” is being used or what
it is that does the having. More on this later.
Bayne begins by defending the phenomenal unity thesis on empirical
grounds by beginning with the self as a biological organism, looking at
specific cases of animalism and psychological views of unity to see if phe-
nomenal unity prevails. He finds that it does. But then he shifts to a stronger
a priori conceptual claim: necessarily, x is a self iff x has phenomenal unity.
According to Bayne, what we need is a phenomenalist (not a functionalist)
conception of the self that allows us to construct selves out of streams of
consciousness and affirm, as a matter of conceptual necessity, that no self can
possess simultaneously two phenomenally unified streams of consciousness.
Thus, if we entertain a thought experiment in which there are two function-
ally interactive, isomorphic streams of consciousness (that is, the two streams
exhibit functional unity) that, nevertheless, are not phenomenally unified,
then we have two minds, not one.
This seems right to me. David Barnett offers a thought experiment that
undergirds this intuition.39 Consider two people, Fred and Ted, who have
trained for years such that Fred and Ted can completely imitate the func-
tional activities of the left and right hemisphere, respectively. Now suppose
we take a third person, Joe, remove his brain, shrink Fred and Ted down
to hemisphere size, and put Fred in Joe’s left hemisphere and Ted in his
right. After the operation, from a third person perspective, there is only
one person and one stream of consciousness present since Fred and Ted
are completely functionally unified. But, says Barnett, given two streams
of integrated phenomenal consciousness, there are two persons present, not
one.
So, Bayne’s project becomes one of finding a view that allows us to
construct a self out of a phenomenally unified stream of consciousness. He
considers and rejects two views—naïve phenomenalism and substrate phe-

nomenalism—and concludes by proffering his own view—virtual phenom-
enalism. Before we look at virtual phenomenalism, it will be instructive to see
the way Bayne handles the two positions he rejects.
Naïve Phenomenalism. According to naïve phenomenalism, it is no
great mystery as to why there is a 1:1 ratio between selves and streams of
conscious, because selves just are streams of consciousness. While Bayne
ultimately rejects this view, he provides defeaters for a number of objections
raised against it. Why would Bayne take the time to do this? In my view,
it is because the metaphysics of his overall position entails that a person is
synchronically identical to “his” totalizing phenomenal field and diachronic-
ally identical to (or, perhaps, the “same” as) “his” stream of consciousness.
As we will see shortly, his own view (virtual phenomenalism) simply adds
a Kantian-like twist to the metaphysics. In any case, in what follows I shall
state the objection to naïve phenomenalism, present the response I imagine
Bayne would offer, and follow that with my own reply to Bayne.
Argument 1: Selves can’t be streams of consciousness—selves are things in their

own right and streams are modifications of selves.
Bayne’s Reply: In some sense, streams are things in their own right, for example,
they have their own principle of unity. The forces that knit together the compo-
nents of a stream of consciousness are no less robust than those that knit together
a single mind or animal.
My Reply to Bayne: Nowhere has Bayne demonstrated that a stream of con-
sciousness has its own principle of unity, and the thin metaphysical framework
within which he works—the totalizing phenomenal state “subsumes” its sub-
states—employs an obscure metaphysical notion that provides no insight what-
soever as to how this is supposed to take place. Moreover, his analogy with
“forces that knit together a single . . . animal” is quite revealing. When forces
“knit” together independently existing entities upon which those forces work,
the result is an atomistic building up of an ordered aggregate—the parts “knit”
together are separable parts and the forces that bring and hold them together are
external relations. You simply don’t get holism out of this; the analogy is atom-
istic, a view Bayne rejects.
Argument 2: Naïve phenomenalism does not do justice to the sense in which

streams are owned/had by selves.
Bayne’s Reply: This will be cashed out mereologically. I suppose by this Bayne
means that, not unlike bundle theories of substance, we can give a reductive analysis
of sentences like “(1): I am exemplifying the property of being-an-appearing-of-red
to form a mode of me—being-appeared-to-redly.” To “(2): A particular phenomenal
state—being-appeared-to-redly—is a part of ‘my’ totalizing phenomenal state at
that time.” Thus, ownership is a part/whole relation.
62 J. P. Moreland
My Reply to Bayne: I will provide my alternative view of ownership later, but for
now, I offer three brief replies. First, it seems difficult to read this view in any
other way than atomistically: there is a separable part/whole relationship going
on and the whole is simply a group of independent phenomenal parts standing
in various external relations to each other. The problem here is that while Bayne
merely and correctly points to the holistic nature of consciousness’s unity, he
does not give a supporting metaphysical analysis of how this could be. Absent
such an analysis, it is hard to avoid bringing to bear fairly standard metaphysical
notions when it comes to evaluating his position, even when those notions entail
propositions Bayne explicitly rejects. Second, a notorious difficulty for bundle
or mereological theories of substance is that they seem to lack the ontological
resources to ground absolute identity through standard changes. For many, this
will be a problem. Finally, Bayne’s theory leaves opaque why most of us do not
think our mental states are parts of us; rather, we take ourselves to be wholes
that are not composed of our mental states. As we will see later, we think of
ourselves as simple substances that “have” mental properties in that we exem-
plify them.
Argument 3: Naïve phenomenalism can’t make sense of locutions such as “I

weigh 185 pounds” or “I will die.”
Bayne’s Reply: Fairly obvious paraphrases are available.
My Reply to Bayne: I basically agree, except for one thing. I do not believe naïve
phenomenalism has paraphrases available that properly handle the indexical “I.”40
For example, in handling objection 2, Bayne has to appeal to a part/whole relation
between an independent phenomenal state and a totalizing state. But which total-
izing state? I don’t think this can be answered without saying “mine,” or some-
thing indexically equivalent. But this is most naturally interpreted as claiming that
I am one thing, and my totalizing phenomenal state is another, namely, a complex
property I exemplify to form a mode of me.
Argument 4: Naïve phenomenalism cannot account for modal properties of the

self, for example, I could have had different experiences, but this would not be
possible if I just am a specific stream of consciousness. Indeed, one can conceive
of a case in which there are no experiences in common between the actual and a
merely possible self.
Bayne’s Reply: Streams of events do not have their parts essentially. For example,
World War II could have started as it did, but could have taken a different direc-
tion. Moreover, any conception of the self will have to deny at least some modal
intuitions. The psychological view must reject the intuition that I could have had
massive brain damage as a child. Animalism must reject the intuition that I could
have been a different animal or disembodied.
My Reply to Bayne: It is hard to see how a stream of events held together by
external relations could, in fact, have had different events. In the loose and popular
sense, World War II could, indeed, have gone off in a different direction. But in the
strict metaphysical sense, this war (call it World War II*) would not be identical
to World War II, but it could be treated as such for various purposes. And Bayne’s
claim that any view of the self must deny some intuitions is false. He only consid-
ers the psychological and animalist views. But a version of substance dualism that
includes a mereologically simple, spiritual substance does not require abandoning
basic intuitions in this area, including the three Bayne mentions. In fact, it seems
pretty obvious that a substance-dualist conception of the person is actually the
source of modal intuitions regarding the self, and advocates of alternative posi-
tions must tweak their views so as to be as close intuitively to substance dualism
as possible without collapsing into substance dualism.
Argument 5: If your stream of consciousness fissions into two with psychological

continuity, naïve phenomenalism cannot tell us which stream I am.
Bayne’s Reply: Maybe consciousness is so deeply unified that fission is impos-
sible. Maybe the physical basis of consciousness is such that continuity is broken
and neither is the original self. In any case, animalism and the psychological view
have troubles here too.
My Reply to Bayne: Our intuitions that fission is possible are much stronger and
better justified than Bayne’s claim that “maybe” fission is impossible. But more
importantly, Bayne admits that naïve phenomenalism, animalism, and the psycho-
logical view have problems here. Elsewhere, Richard Swinburne has identified
why this is the case: substance dualism resolves this issue and physicalist views
do not.41
Bayne concludes that naïve phenomenalism is too naïve, and we must

look elsewhere for a more adequate model. Bayne very briefly considers and
rejects a second view—substrate phenomenalism—the view that the self is
identical to the material substrate that underlies and generates consciousness.
But this won’t work, says Bayne, because there is no a priori guarantee that
a single generative, underlying mechanism will produce only one stream of
consciousness, and he is looking for a view that makes the unity of conscious-
ness and its 1:1 relationship with a self a matter of a priori necessity. We now
turn to a presentation of Bayne’s own view.
Virtual Phenomenalism. For Bayne, the “self” is merely an intentional
entity, one whose identity is determined by the cognitive architecture under-
lying the stream of consciousness; a sort of brain architecture that generates
a fictitious entity like a character in a novel. So, the “self” is a virtual center
of phenomenal gravity. In de se reference, the “subject” represents itself as
itself; conscious states are automatically de se. Streams of consciousness are
constructed around a single intentional object like a narrative is unified around
the novel’s main character. So, the cognitive architecture underlying your
stream of consciousness represents that stream as if it were had by a single
self—the virtual object that is “brought into being” by de se representation.
64 J. P. Moreland
So, the cognitive architecture underlying consciousness creates a unifying

single subject/center of consciousness as a projected, virtual reality due to
the de se nature of the constructed conscious states. A unified field projects
one and only one virtual self. Other approaches go wrong in thinking that
there must be a real entity that plays the role of the self, but the self is a mere
intentional object (like Zeus?). The self isn’t really real, but self-talk is still
“legitimate” in the way we talk of a character in a novel.
What should we say about Bayne’s virtual phenomenalism? To begin with,
I must confess that when I first read it, I thought that Bayne must be kidding.
In my view, his position amounts to a bunch of mere assertions that allow
him to avoid an obvious solution: substance dualism. How could we ever
tell whether virtual phenomenalism is true? What possible evidence could
be marshaled for it? Ontologically speaking, I think his view is really just a
version of naïve phenomenalism (thus, Bayne’s defense of the view) with a
Kantian-style just so “as if” story added to it.
Second, we don’t start with a role that needs to be filled—if we did, we
would have no idea what roles to choose—and posit a self to fill it. We begin,
rather, with knowledge by acquaintance of our own simple self, and then
upon reflection, we see that it plays various roles, for example, the unifier of
consciousness.42 Moreover, why do people throughout human history and all
over the world take themselves to be indivisible, disembodiable souls? I think
the answer is that people simply are able to be aware of themselves.
Third, if the phenomenal field just is unified in and of itself, what would
be the need for the brain to project a (virtual) self? Why would conscious
states automatically and of necessity be de se? I think Bayne just posits these
as brute facts—but surely, they are so odd, given his view, that we would be
better off trying to find a different position that makes more sense of these
and related issues.
Fourth, on Bayne’s view, de se reference is systematically false. I-thoughts
have no real, veridical intentional object. But surely this is far too extreme
and skeptical. Part of what allows Bayne to get away with his view of de se
reference is his inadequate characterization of the second role for the self,
namely, to be an object of reference for I-thoughts. A more adequate charac-
terization is this: the self is the object of the self-referring use of “I” but also
that which employs “I” to self-refer. Once we see this, it becomes clear that
there are no irreducible I-thoughts. Rather, there are substantial souls, selves,
Is, with the power of self-awareness and self-reflection that can be expressed
indexically.
Finally, I believe Bayne’s view gives inadequate analyses for the other two
roles he claims the self must play: ownership and having a perspectival point
of view. Regarding ownership, there is no real self that owns anything. There
is simply the totalizing, holistic phenomenal field that has individual states as
parts. Given his rejection of atomism, it is hard to see what kind of parts these
are. At the very least, this aspect of his view is in need of considerable clarifica-
tion. Regarding the next role, what exactly is it that has this perspectival point
of view? Given the arguments by Hasker and LaRock considered earlier, it
can’t be the brain because it is not a simple. Nor can it be the totalizing phenom-
enal field because for Bayne, that field just is the perspectival point of view in
and of itself. In my view, for two reasons there is no such thing as the property
of being a (first-person) perspectival point of view that something exemplifies.
For one thing, if there is such a property, it is an impure one. An impure
property, for example, being identical to Socrates or to the left of a desk,
requires reference to a particular to be described. Such a property cannot
constitute such a referent without being circular—the property presupposes
and, therefore, cannot constitute the particular—Socrates, the desk, or an
individual person—to which reference is made. Similarly, being a first-person
perspectival point of view presupposes the I.
For another thing, there most likely is no such property. In general, one
may give a reductive analysis of the first-person perspective as follows: S
has the property of being a first-person perspectival point of view iff S is
a personal, viewing kind of point, that is, S is a kind of substance (point),
a sentient (viewing) substance, with the properties (including ultimate
potentialities) characteristic of persons (e.g., self-awareness and so on). The
first-person perspective is not a property persons have, it is the thing persons
are: centers of a personal kind of consciousness. Persons qua substantial,
unified centers, exemplify ordinary mental properties—being-a-thought-that-
P, being-a-sensation-of-red, being painful. But they do not have in addition
to these the property of being a first-person perspectival point of view. A
substantial personal ego’s exemplifying an ordinary mental property is ipso
facto a first-person perspectival point of view. There is no additional fact that
needs grounding in a superfluous property—being a first-person perspective.
The “first-person perspective” is just a way of describing/referring to an onto-
logically prior substantial, sentient person with ordinary mental properties to
which that perspective can be reduced.
At the end of the day, Bayne has provided no clear, explanatory model
of what it would be for consciousness to be unified or how this can be. Talk
about subsumption, forces that knit together the components of a stream of
consciousness (while avoiding atomism!) and Kantian-like fictitious selves,
will hardly do. For Bayne, the unity of consciousness turns out to be a brute
fact. But I think that unity can be further analyzed by appropriating ontologi-
cal categories that are clear and that have long been with us.
Before I briefly present my alternative ontology of the unity of conscious-
ness, it would be helpful to spell out some ontological notions I shall use to
cash out my position.
66 J. P. Moreland
Properties. A property is a universal, that is, something that can be nonspa-

tially in, exemplified, or possessed by many things at the same time. As I have
defended elsewhere, constituent realism is the best view of how properties
relate to the ordinary particulars that “have” them.43 According to constituent
realism, properties are universals that, when exemplified, become constitu-
ents of the ordinary particulars that have them. Thus, if the mind exemplifies
a mental property, say, the property of being-a-thought-of-London, then that
property enters into the very being of the mind as a metaphysical constituent.44
Parts. There are two kinds of parts relevant to our discussion: separable and
inseparable. p is a separable part of some whole W =def. p is a particular, p is a
part of W and p can exist if it is not a part of W.
p is an inseparable part of some whole W =def. p is a particular, p is a part of
W and p cannot exist if it is not a part of W. Inseparable parts get their existence
and identity from the whole of which they are parts.
The paradigm case of an inseparable part in this tradition is a (monadic)

property-instance or relation-instance. Thus, if substance s has property
P, the-having-of-P-by-s is (1) a property-instance of P; (2) an inseparable part
of s which we may also call a mode of s. For example, let s be a chunk of clay,
P be the property of being round, and the-having-of-P-by-s be the-clay’s-
being-round. The clay could exist without being round, and the property of
being round could exist without there being clay (e.g., a baseball could have
that property), but the-clay’s-being-round could not exist without the clay.
The-clay’s-being-round is a mode or inseparable part of the clay.
A substance =def. an essentially characterized particular that (1) has (and
is the principle of unity for its) properties but is not had by or predicable of
something more basic than it; (2) is an enduring continuant; (3) has insepa-
rable parts but is not composed of separable parts; (4) is complete in species.45
A spiritual substance (self or soul) =def. (1) a substance; (2) metaphysically
indivisible in being (though it may be fractured in functioning); (3) not spa-
tially extended (though some characterizations hold that it may be spatially
located); (4) essentially characterized by the actual and potential properties
of consciousness.
Internal Relations. If something, A (say the color yellow), stands in an
internal relation (brighter than) to B (say the color purple), then anything that
did not stand in that relation to B could not be A. So, if any color was not
brighter than purple, it could not be the color yellow. If a thing, X, stands in
an internal relation to another thing, Y, then part of what makes X the very
thing it is, is that it stands in that relation to Y.
Given this framework, it is fairly straightforward to spell out the nature of the
unity of phenomenal consciousness and the nature of its ground. The substantial
self (soul, I) is spatially unextended and not composed of separable parts.

The self’s having a mental state, say, an awareness of a table, occurs when the
self exemplifies the property being-an-awareness-of-the-table—call this prop-
erty P, and this forms a mode of the self, call it the-having-of-P-by-the-self.
This mode may be described as the self’s being-appeared-to-tablely. It is an
inseparable part of the self and it stands in an internal relation to the self. This
is what a particular phenomenal state is. Synchronically, the various phenom-
enally conscious modes of the self are unified into one totalizing phenomenal
mode (state) by being modes of the same simple self and by being internally
related to that self. Finally, the self is a unique kind of substance in that it has
the power of self-awareness and self-reference.
It is not my purpose here to argue directly for substance dualism. I have
done that elsewhere.46 Rather I want to show how that view addresses and
solves the problems that I have claimed Bayne’s view does not.
1. It solves the binding problem and Hasker’s argument considered earlier by

employing a simple, substantial self.
2. It employs clear, standard ontological notions that have constituted the
heart of ontology for a long time.
3. It provides a solid analysis of Bayne’s three roles for a self: Owner-
ship: that which has conscious states is the simple self, and the “having”
amounts to the self’s exemplifying various properties of consciousness to
form modes of the self. Referential: substantial, simple selves simply have
the power of self-awareness and self-reference. Thus, the I both employs
“I” in linguistic acts of self-reference and is the object of those acts. Per-
spectival: the substantial, simple self exemplifies and unifies various prop-
erties of consciousness that, in turn, have the property of intentionality.
In this way, the self/I has an irreducible, unified totalized conscious state/
mode that is about intentional objects. Because modes are inseparable
parts internally related to the self, this totalizing state is unique to one self
and cannot be shared.
4. It provides a way of relating the three types of unity: (i) Objectual phe-
nomenal unity: two or more states are so unified if they are experiences as
being of the same object. (ii) Subject phenomenal unity: this occurs when
all of one’s phenomenal states are had by the same subject. (iii) Subsump-
tive phenomenal unity: two (or more) states are subsumptively phenom-
enally unified just in case there is something it is like to be in both states
simultaneously and conjointly. Subject phenomenal unity occurs when all
of one’s phenomenal states are modes of the same, simple I. This view is
neither irrelevant nor true by definition. Rather, it is a substantive (!) thesis
with a developed ontology. It is because of subject phenomenal unity that
objectual phenomenal unity obtains: two or more states are experienced
68 J. P. Moreland
as being of the same object (e.g., the color and shape of a table) because
they belong to the same object and the substantial I is simply aware of
the table as a whole, including its various aspects. Finally, the reason
subsumptive phenomenal unity obtains is because it is the same self that
exemplifies the conscious property constituting each phenomenal mode/
state and the self’s unification of these into a totalizing mode is due to the
self’s simplicity.
5. My model provides a simple explanation for why Frank Jackson’s obser-
vation is correct: “I take it that our folk conception of personal identity is
Cartesian in character—in particular, we regard the question of whether
I will be tortured tomorrow as separable from the question of whether
someone with any amount of continuity—psychological, bodily, neuro-
physiological, and so on and so forth—with me today will be tortured.”47
As we saw earlier, people don’t have to be taught to be dualists like they
must if they are to be physicalists. Indeed, little children are naturally dual-
ists. Summing up research in developmental psychology, Henry Wellman
states that “young children are dualists: knowledgeable of mental states
and entities as ontologically different from physical objects and real [non-
imaginary] events.”48 The reason human persons all over the world and
throughout history have overwhelmingly believed in a substantial self is
because they are substantial selves and they have the ability to be aware
of themselves.
FINAL PLEA TO CHRISTIAN PHYSICALISTS
In light of what I have argued so far, I urge my Christian-physicalist brothers

and sisters please to reconsider their views. Let’s be honest. The findings of
neuroscience have virtually nothing to do with the nature of consciousness or
the self. Those findings provide insight about correlations, causal relations,
or dependency relations between mental states and physical states and vice
versa. Given this, I believe my solution to the unity-of-consciousness prob-
lem provides a number of advantages over physicalism. I offer this list for
reflection.
1. The best analysis of the nature of the unity of consciousness requires a

form of holism that is not consistent with a Darwinian naturalist account
of how life came about. This strengthens the design argument for God’s
existence as many naturalists acknowledge. Thus, they attempt to reduce,
eliminate, or appeal to magic (emergence) to avoid providing evidence for
the design argument. Christians should be excited about this rather than
being resistant.
2. Given the nature of consciousness’s diachronic and synchronic unity, the

best explanation for it is the existence of a spiritual substance or soul.
Despite contemporary Christian physicalism, this sort of dualism is clearly
what the Bible teaches and what everyone in the history of the church—
whether exposed to the Greeks or not—have held. It also comports with
what 99 percent of the human race worldwide have known by direct intro-
spection since Neanderthals.
3. The reality of the soul provides the clearest and best ground for absolute
diachronic and synchronic personal identity in this life and into the next.
4. The reality of the soul provides the clearest and best ground for libertarian
freedom, whether the soul is taken to be an emergent individual or not. This,
in turn, provides a model of the human person that sheds light on how there
could be a synchronic and diachronic unity to responsible moral actions
such that the enduring subject is an appropriate object of praise and blame.
5. The reality of the soul comports well with the massive and ever-growing
evidence that near death experiences are real and involve the soul leaving
the body.
6. The nature of the unity of consciousness implies that there is only one
stream of consciousness and one self per body, setting aside the demonic.
If the brain is the bearer of consciousness, it is hard to explain how (i) a
mereological aggregate could give rise to one, unified, holistic stream of
consciousness; and (ii) one can avoid several selves in the brain/body, for
example, a visual self, an auditory self, and so forth.
NOTES
1. J. Gresham Machen, The Christian View of Man (New York: Macmillan,

1937), 159.
2. See John Cooper, Body, Soul & Life Everlasting, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2000).
3. N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress,
2003), 131–34, 190–206, 366–7, 424–26.
4. See Charles Taliaferro, “Emergentism and Consciousness,” in Kevin Corcoran
(ed), Soul, Body and Survival (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 60.
5. Jaegwon Kim, “Lonely Souls: Causality and Substance Dualism,” in Soul,
Body and Survival, 30.
6. Frank Jackson, From Metaphysics to Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 45.
7. Henry Wellman, The Child’s Theory of Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1990), 50. I owe this reference to Stewart Goetz and Mark Baker.
8. Nancey Murphy, “Human Nature: Historical, Scientific and Religious Issues,”
in Warren S. Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Malony (eds), Whatever Hap-
pened to the Soul? (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), 18.
70 J. P. Moreland
9. Murphy, “Human Nature,” 17; cf. 13, 27.

Cambridge University Press, 2006), 56.
11. Murphy, Bodies and Souls, 112.
12. C. Stephen Evans, “Separable Souls: Dualism, Selfhood, and the Possibility of
Life After Death,” Christian Scholar’s Review, 34 (2005): 333–34.
13. John Tyndall, “Scientific Materialism,” in his Fragments of Science: A Series
of Detached Essays, Addresses and Reviews, vol. 2 (New York: D. Appleton and Co.,
1896).
14. See J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae, Body and Soul (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-
Varsity Press, 2000), chapter 4.
15. Roderick Chisholm, “Human Freedom and the Self,” reprinted in On Meta-
physics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 14.
16. John Searle, Minds, Brains, and Science (Cambridge, MA: 1984), 98.
17. John Bishop, Natural Agency (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1989), 1. Bishop’s own solution eschews libertarian agency in favor of a version of
compatibilism.
18. John Bishop, Natural Agency, 40. An interesting implication of Bishop’s view
is that naturalism cannot allow for there to be a first event in the absolute sense of not
being preceded by other events because all events are caused by prior events or else
they are simply uncaused. In the latter case, the coming to be of the event cannot be
“natural” since it is just a brute fact. In the former case, this means that if the kalam
cosmological argument is correct and there was a beginning to the universe, then the
beginning itself was not a natural event nor was its cause if it had one. For more on
this, see William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang
Cosmology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
19. Joshua Hoffman and Gary S. Rosenkrantz, Substance: Its Nature and Exis-
tence (London: Routledge, 1997), 98–99.
20. Geoffrey Madell, The Identity of the Self (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 1981), 16. Cf. Georg Gasser, Matthias Stefan, eds., Personal Identity: Complex
or Simple (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
21. For more on problems of material composition, see Michael Rea, ed., Material
Constitution: A Reader (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996); Christopher M.
Brown, Thomas Aquinas and the Ship of Theseus (London: Continuum, 2005).
22. Jonathan Schaffer, “On What Grounds What,” in David Manley, David J.
Chalmer, and Ryan Wasserman (eds), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Founda-
tions of Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 28.
23. The view I am advancing is called mereological essentialism (from the Greek
word “meros” which means “part.” Mereological essentialism is the idea that an
object’s parts are essential to its identity such that it could not sustain its identity to
itself if it had alternative parts. Animalists and constitutionalists deny mereological
essentialism. For a brief exposition of these views, see Eric Olson, What are We? A
Study in Personal Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), chapters 2 and
3. In different ways, each view claims that, under certain circumstances, when parts
come together to form a whole, as a primitive fact, the whole itself just is the sort of
thing that can survive part alteration. In my view, this is just an assertion. The whole
just is parts and various relations, and neither the parts nor the relations can sustain
identity if alternatives are present. The whole is not a basic object—it is identical to
its parts and relations.
24. A somewhat fuller presentation of the material in this section may be found
in my “Substance Dualism and the Unity of Consciousness,” in The Blackwell Com-
panion to Substance Dualism edited by Jonathan Loose, Angus Menuge, and J. P.
Moreland (Oxford: Blackwell, forthcoming, 2018).
25. Tim Bayne and David J. Chalmers, “What is the Unity of Consciousness?” in
Axel Cleeremans (ed) The Unity of Consciousness: Binding, Integration and Disso-
ciation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 23–58.
26. Bayne and Chalmers, “What is the Unity of Consciousness?” 32–33.
27. Axel Cleeremans, “Introduction,” in The Unity of Consciousness, 2.
28. Bayne and Chalmers, 33.
29. Bayne and Chalmers, 40. They go on to show that, under certain conditions,
the Subsumptive Unity Thesis (for any set of phenomenal states of a subject at a time,
the subject has a phenomenal state that subsumes each of the states in that set) is
materially equivalent with the Logical Unity Thesis (for any set of phenomenal states
of a subject at a time, the subject has a phenomenal state that entails each of the states
in the set). But material equivalence is not identity, and subsumption is still left as an
alleged intuitive primitive.
30. William Hasker, The Emergent Self (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1999), 122–44. See also William Hasker, “On Behalf of Emergent Dualism,” in In
Search of the Soul, ed. Joel B. Green and Stuart L. Palmer (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-
Varsity Press, 2005), 75–100.
31. Bayne and Chalmers, 26–27.
32. Bayne, The Unity of Consciousness, 225–29.
33. According to constituent realism, when an object exemplifies a property or
a collection of objects exemplify a relation, the property or relation (universals)
constitutes an immanent essence of the individuating property or relation instances,
which in turn, particularize the individual structure in view, keeping it from being an
abstract universal. I have defended this view elsewhere. See my “Exemplification and
Constituent Realism: A Clarification and Modest Defense,” Axiomathes 23 (2013):
247–59.
34. Eric LaRock, “From Biological Naturalism to Emergent Substance Dualism,”
Philosophia Christi 15 (2013): 97–118.
35. Eric LaRock, “Emergent Dualism is Theoretically Preferable to Reductive
Functionalism,” unpublished manuscript, 31 March 2015.
36. LaRock, 15.
37. The best exposition of Bayne’s views is found in his The Unity of Conscious-
ness, chapter 12.
38. The other significant attempt to solve the unity of consciousness problem is
offered by Lynne Rudder Baker. See her Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), especially Part I. I have criti-
cized her view elsewhere: J. P. Moreland, The Recalcitrant Imago Dei (London: SCM
72 J. P. Moreland
Press, 2009), 131–37. It may be worth mentioning that split-brain issues have been
raised as a significant defeater for advocates of the sort of unity of consciousness like
Bayne and me. In my opinion, Bayne has provided an adequate response to this prob-
lem. See Tim Bayne, “The Unity of Consciousness and the Split-Brain Syndrome,”
The Journal of Philosophy 105, no. 6 (2008): 277–300.
39. David Barnett, “You Are Simple,” in Robert Koons and George Bealer (eds),
The Waning of Materialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 161–74.
40. For more on this, see Geoffrey Madell, The Essence of the Self (New York:
Routledge, 2015).
41. See Richard Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1986), 147–51; Mind, Brain & Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013),
152–58.
42. See J. P. Moreland, “Substance Dualism and the Argument from Self-Aware-
ness,” Philosophia Christi 13, no. 1 (Summer 2011): 21–34.
43. See J. P. Moreland, “Exemplification and Constituent Realism: A Clarification
and Modest Defense.”
44. See Dallas Willard, “How Concepts Relate the Mind to its Objects: The ‘God’s
Eye View,’” Philosophia Christi 1, no. 2 (1999): 5–20.
45. Two helpful treatments of substances and related entities are Joshua Hoffman
and Gary S. Rosenkrantz, Substance: Its Nature and Existence (London: Routledge,
1997); Christopher M. Brown, Aquinas and the Ship of Theseus (London: Continuum,
2005).
46. Besides the source cited in note 20 above, see my Recalcitrant Imago Dei,
chapter 5; “A Conceptualist Argument for Substance Dualism,” Religious Studies 49
(March 2013): 35–43.
47. Frank Jackson, From Metaphysics to Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon: 1998), 45.
48. Henry Wellman, The Child’s Theory of Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT press:
1990), 50. I owe this reference to Stewart Goetz and Mark Baker.
Baker, Lynne Rudder. Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Barnett, David. “You Are Simple.” In The Waning of Materialism, edited by Robert
Koons and George Bealer, 161–74. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Bayne, Tim. The Unity of Consciousness. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press,
2010.
———. “The Unity of Consciousness and the Split-Brain Syndrome.” The Journal of
Philosophy 105, no. 6 (2008): 277–300.
Bayne, Tim, and David J. Chalmers. “What is the Unity of Consciousness?” In The
Unity of Consciousness: Binding, Integration and Dissociation, edited by Axel
Cleeremans, 23–58. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Gasser, Georg, and Matthias Stefan, eds. Personal Identity: Complex or Simple?
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
LaRock, Eric. “From Biological Naturalism to Emergent Substance Dualism.” Phi-

losophia Christi 15 (2013): 97–118.
Moreland, J. P. Consciousness and the Existence of God. New York: Routledge,
2008.
———. “Exemplification and Constituent Realism: A Clarification and Modest
Defense.” Axiomathes 23 (2013): 247–59.
——— . The Recalcitrant Imago Dei. London: SCM Press, 2009.
Willard, Dallas. “How Concepts Relate the Mind to its Objects: The ‘God’s Eye
View.’” Philosophia Christi 1, no. 2 (1999): 5–20.
Chapter 4
Christian Physicalism and

Our Knowledge of God
Angus Menuge
Christian physicalism (henceforth, CP) claims that human persons do not

possess immaterial souls, but are either strictly identical to,1 emergent from,2
or constituted by,3 material objects—namely, living human beings. Many
of the theological criticisms of CP question its ability to account for basic
Christian teachings like the Incarnation4 and the Resurrection.5 In this chap-
ter, I focus on the epistemological adequacy of CP. Several philosophers
have argued that standard (i.e., non-Christian) physicalism faces a variety of
general problems in accounting for knowledge.6 Here I argue that, although it
recognizes God’s existence, CP inherits similar difficulties and, in particular,
seems incompatible with biblical teachings about our ability to know God
through general and special revelation.7
I begin by considering a general requirement for our having knowledge
of God—that we can form appropriate, valid concepts of God (henceforth,
divine concepts)—and note that there seem to be just three main ways that
this requirement might be fulfilled. Divine concepts are either (1) acquired,
(2) innate, or else (3) constantly emanated by God. I then argue that this pres-
ents a trilemma for CP. Regardless of which of these three options is selected,
CP does not give a credible account of our possession of divine concepts, and
therefore cannot explain our knowledge of God. Along the way, I consider
several natural responses that a proponent of CP might make, and show that
they are inadequate
But is the dualist—who affirms that the human person is an integrated
union of a material body and an immaterial soul—any better off? At the end
of the chapter, I outline some reasons to think that immaterial souls are more
apt to possess the divine concepts required to know God.
75
76 Angus Menuge
KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
Historic, orthodox Christianity clearly teaches that humans can have knowl-
edge of God. They can come to know about God—that He exists and has
certain transcendent attributes—through an understanding of nature: the
general revelation noted in such passages as Psalm 19:1–2 and Romans
1:19–20.8 And they can come to know God personally through Jesus Christ as
revealed in the scriptures (special revelation). But such knowledge assumes
that humans have adequate concepts of God and His nature, so that we can
think that God exists, that He is infinite and perfect, and that He is incarnate
in the person of the God-man, Jesus Christ.
This reflects a general requirement for knowledge: we cannot know what
we cannot think. Consider a mundane example. To know that there is a bird
in the shrub requires one to have concepts of birds and shrubs. If one does not
have these concepts one cannot even think that there is a bird in the shrub. But
if one cannot think that something is the case, one cannot have a true belief
about it, and so there is no question of knowing it. But even if one does have
the concepts, this is not enough to make knowledge possible. The concepts
must also be valid, that is, they must be appropriately grounded in the way
reality is. If I have somehow acquired a fictitious concept, such as the concept
of a leprechaun, I can certainly believe that there is a leprechaun in the shrub,
but I cannot know it, because this concept is not appropriately grounded in
the nature of reality: there are no leprechauns. Valid concepts must derive
from a reliable source, objects that actually exemplify the properties a con-
cept presents to the mind. Suppose that we lived in a world void of birds and
shrubs (as our actual world is void of leprechauns), and that an evil genius
had implanted the concepts of birds and shrubs in someone’s mind: that per-
son could think, but could not know, that a bird is in the shrub, because the
way those concepts present the world as being does not derive from the way
the world is. A valid concept must derive its presentational features (how it
represents the world as being) from properties the world actually exemplifies
(how the world is).
It is this basic requirement for knowledge—that one cannot know unless
one has relevant, valid concepts—which makes it difficult to see how CP can
explain knowledge of God. If we can know God, then we must have valid
concepts of God (divine concepts). It seems that there are only three main
ways we can acquire basic concepts (and our other concepts derive from
complex combinations of these). Empiricists like Thomas Aquinas and John
Locke argue that our basic concepts are acquired (for example, by abstrac-
tion from experience), and they offer a posteriori arguments for God based
on divine concepts we have derived from experience. By contrast, rationalists
Christian Physicalism and Our Knowledge of God 77
like Anselm and René Descartes emphasize our possession of innate con-
cepts, and they offer a priori arguments for God’s existence based on divine
concepts engrafted into our being. A third possibility is that divine concepts
are neither acquired nor innate, but constantly emanated by God as He calls
us to know Him.9
But this, I argue, presents a trilemma for CP, since a physicalist anthropol-
ogy makes all three of these options problematic. I will begin by sketching
the trilemma, then develop each of its horns in more detail in subsequent
sections.
A TRILEMMA FOR CHRISTIAN PHYSICALISM
Consider the first horn: divine concepts are acquired. On a physicalist anthro-
pology, it is not plausible that we can acquire divine concepts due to limita-
tions imposed by the brain. To qualify as physicalist, CP must assert that
our psychological capacities (in particular, our ability to form concepts) are
dependent on the physical state of the brain, but there are serious limitations
on the kind of information that the brain can transmit to our thoughts. On a
physicalist anthropology, I argue that the brain is an informational “bottle-
neck,” that will not permit us to form the transcendent concepts of God—as
an infinite, perfect, eternal being—that we need to know Him.
Now consider the second horn: divine concepts are innate. This may seem
compatible with CP, since there is no obvious contradiction in the idea of
God engrafting divine concepts in a physical being.10 But knowledge of God
requires not merely the possession of divine concepts, but also a subject
that can access those concepts. This, I argue, is a problem for CP because
it fails adequately to account for the existence of a subject at and over time.
So innate divine concepts of God would be like those library books students
don’t read—material for potential knowledge, but not actual knowledge,
because there is no knowing subject.
Finally, consider the third horn: God tirelessly refreshes our brains
by constantly emanating divine concepts. This is not a good fit with CP
because it is not really a physicalist proposal: the intervention of God, an
immaterial being, is routinely required to account for our psychological
capacities, and so these capacities are not exclusively determined by our
physical states. In fact, on this view, God becomes a very busy surrogate for
the soul, personally doing all of the work that dualists attribute to creaturely
human souls.
We will now take a closer look at each of the three horns of the trilemma
in turn, and also consider likely rejoinders from proponents of CP.
78 Angus Menuge
Acquired Divine Concepts

Proponents of CP may affirm or deny that mental properties reduce to proper-
ties of the brain. If they affirm it, call this Reductive CP. If they deny it, call
this Nonreductive CP. We will consider each of these alternatives in turn.
Reductive CP
Reductive CP holds that psychological capacities really are just physical
capacities of the brain. In that case, our ability to think must be limited by the
causal powers of the brain: for, on the plausible principle that we can indi-
viduate properties in terms of their distinctive causal powers, if our psycho-
logical capacities exceed the causal powers of the brain, there must be mental
properties that do not reduce to properties of the brain.11 However, it does not
seem possible that the brain’s operations can account for important divine
concepts, for example, the concepts of an infinite, perfect, and eternal being.
Consider infinity. Consistently with his materialism, Thomas Hobbes
argues that the scope of our thought is limited to what we can imagine and
that our imagination is determined solely by physical interactions between
our brain, our senses, and the environment. But we only ever experience finite
objects and qualities, and both the senses and our brain are capable of only
a finite number of operations on that sensory input. Finite operations (e.g.,
of cutting and pasting, and various forms of combination) on finite input can
only produce a finite output, so representations (ideas, mental images, and
models, etc.) are themselves obviously finite. And, Hobbes argues, finite
operations on sensory input that represents finite objects and qualities cannot
yield a representation that presents an infinite object or quality: “Whatever
we imagine is finite” and hence that “there is no idea or conception of any-
thing we can call infinite.”12
This second claim is less obvious, however. One may suppose that even
though our representations (ideas) are, as objects or states, finite, still they
might have infinite representation content, and there might be a finite route to
their acquiring it (to their being able to represent something as being infinite).
In particular, even if our concepts derive from finite sensory input, surely
there might be a via negativa (way of denial) that takes us to a presentation
of the infinite by the finite operation of denial that some quality is present to
a finite, limited degree.13 While this proposal has some initial plausibility,
further reflection shows that the concept of the infinite cannot be constructed
in this way. If we look closely at what is involved in a denial of finite limits,
we will see that this denial presupposes that we already have a concept of the
infinite, and therefore cannot explain the origin of that concept.
A proponent of CP who thinks that the concept of infinity is acquired via
operations on sensory input might claim that all we need is to abstract the
concepts of finite limits and negation. The concept of the infinite is then
formed simply by a finite application of the concept of denial to the concept
of limits: to say that something is infinite is simply to say that there is no finite
limit to it. However, this argument collapses once we examine its meaning in
terms of first order quantified logic. For whether a denial of finite limits entails
infinity depends on the domain over which we are quantifying. If that domain
is finite—if it contains a finite number of limits—saying that something x has
no finite limit in that domain does not imply that x is infinite, for it is possible
that x is simply finite but larger (it has a greater limit) than any member of the
domain. Therefore, in order for a denial of finite limits to entail that something
is infinite, it must be that the domain contains an infinite set of finite limits:
when we say that an entity is not bounded by any of these limits, that object
must be infinite. But that alerts us to the fact that in the sense required, “x has
no finite limit” means “for any limit L in an infinite set of limits, x is not lim-
ited by L.” And therefore, in order for me to understand what “x has no limit”
means in the appropriate sense, I must already have the concept of infinity. I
have to grasp the concept of an infinite set of limits before the denial of limits
can yield a valid concept of the infinite. But if so, this denial cannot be the
means by which I originally acquired the concept of infinity.
Further, if our concept of limits is acquired from our sensory experiences,
the fact is that we have only ever experienced finite entities, and so any denial
that an entity is limited by what we have experienced would only entail that
it is something larger, but finite. We clearly cannot get the concept of the
infinite just from the idea of something beyond the limits we have actually
experienced. It is therefore only by smuggling in the idea that we have a grasp
of limits in general—of all possible limits in an infinite domain—that the via
negativa proposal gains any plausibility.
Interestingly, though not a materialist, Descartes agrees with Hobbes that
we cannot derive the concept of infinity from experience. For Descartes,
infinity and other divine concepts are innate, and he counters the via negativa
by challenging its assumption that our concept of the finite is unproblematic:
And I must not think that I perceive the infinite not through a true idea, but
rather only through the negation of the finite, just as I perceive rest and shadows
through the negation of movement and of light. For—on the contrary—I mani-
festly understand that there is more reality in an infinite substance than there is
in a finite one, and therefore that the perception of the infinite is in me in some
mode prior to the perception of the finite, that is, that the perception of God is
in me in some mode prior to the perception of me myself.14
Descartes argues that it is only through a prior grasp of God’s infinity that
he is—by way of negation—able to grasp his own finitude. The via negativa
from our concept of the finite to the concept of the infinite has it exactly
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backward: we have a concept of the finite only by way of denying our prior
concept of the infinite. Our tendency to prioritize the finite over the infinite
may only reflect a linguistic illusion, since the word “infinite” is constructed
by adding the negation “in” to “finite.” Ontologically, though, being itself is
not limited, so my primary concept of being does not imply any limitation.
However, I discover my own existence by distinguishing it from being in gen-
eral, by seeing that I have boundaries and deficiencies that being in general
does not possess. If Descartes is right, and I can know anything finite only by
a prior grasp of God as an infinite being, there is no question of my being able
to construct a concept of God’s infinity from any finite source.
Similar arguments would appear to show that, on Reductive CP, we can
have no concept of perfection or eternity either. The operations of imperfect
brains on the imperfect objects and qualities presented to the senses do not
explain our ability to imagine (or subsequently conceive of) a perfect being.
Indeed, Descartes argues that here again, the via negativa runs in just the
opposite direction:
For how would I understand that I doubt and that I desire, that is that something
is lacking in me and that I am not completely perfect, if there were no idea
of a more perfect being in me from whose comparison I might recognize my
defects?15
Likewise, the inputs and operations of brains are exclusively temporal, so

they do not seem able to account for our ability to think of an eternal being.
A remarkable feature of the human mind is that it possesses the concept of the
cosmos—of the totality of space and time—and this is what makes it possible
to develop the cosmological argument, which infers some being beyond the
cosmos. But how can we think about all of time unless we have some implicit
counter-perspective, some grasp of what is not conditioned by time? Just as
our ability to think of limits in general presupposes a concept of the infinite,
it seems that our ability to think of time in general presupposes a concept of
the eternal.
Reductive CP fails to give a plausible account of our acquisition of divine
concepts such as infinity, perfection, and eternity, and therefore this popular
combination (a reductive materialist anthropology and an empiricist view
of concept acquisition) fails to explain how knowledge of God is possible.16
Nonreductive CP
Reductive materialism has taken a beating in recent times, and it is increas-
ingly fashionable for proponents of CP to take the nonreductionist option,
for example, by claiming that mental properties emerge from the brain and
bring new causal powers into the world, maybe even the power to act back
on the brain and body (so-called “downward mental causation”).17 Despite

many subtle differences in their positions, Lynne Baker, Kevin Corcoran,
and Nancey Murphy all affirm that persons have mental properties that do
not reduce to the physical states from which they emerge. If the powers of
the mind transcend those of the brain, perhaps the mind can overcome the
limitations of the brain so that it can acquire divine concepts.
However, if CP is to qualify as a physicalist theory, it must limit the extent
to which mental properties transcend physical properties. By definition,
physicalism is committed to the view that emergent mental states and proper-
ties are exclusively determined by physical base states and properties. Thus
psychophysical supervenience, the thesis that there can be no mental differ-
ence without a physical difference, is typically cited as the lowest common
denominator commitment of any variety of physicalism. A physicalist may
affirm property dualism, claiming that mental properties do not ontologically
reduce to physical properties.18 But it is arguably not compatible with physi-
calism to assert that these mental properties can operate in complete causal
independence of their physical bases. The assertion of such a strong form of
mental independence sounds like the dualist claim that (whether the mind is
a strict substance or not)19 the mental is a realm with its own set of powers,
powers not exclusively determined by physical objects and properties. If so,
it risks trivializing physicalism to affirm such mental independence.20 But this
requirement of the dependence of the mental on the physical makes it hard to
see how Nonreductive CP fares better than Reductive CP as an explanation
of our acquisition of divine concepts.
If our physical sensory input always presents finite, imperfect, and tem-
poral objects and qualities, and our brain is capable only of finite, imperfect,
and temporal operations, any physical base state it yields as output does not
represent or indicate an infinite, perfect, and eternal being. But if our thoughts
are determined by these physical base states, this surely has implications
for the information these thoughts can contain. If our thoughts are limited
by their informational input from the brain to being thoughts of the finite,
imperfect, and temporal, and if, as we argued, there is no via negativa that
uses finite operations of negation to convert these into thoughts of an infinite,
perfect, and eternal being, Nonreductive CP does not explain our acquisition
of divine concepts.
But perhaps our thoughts have a power to represent that brains lack: thus,
proponents of Nonreductive CP emphasize that thoughts but not brains have
intentionality21 and that persons but not brains are capable of a first-person
perspective.22 However, this is highly contentious, since it is arguable that
both of these claims are really dualist ones: they appear to affirm the inde-
pendence of the mental. Nonreductive physicalists (Christian or not) may
retort that one can be a property dualist without being a substance dualist,
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understanding intentionality and a first-person perspective as emergent men-

tal properties, while denying that these properties belong to an immaterial
substance. But, on inspection, this kind of “mere property dualism,” which
affirms independent mental properties, but not independent mental subjects,
is unstable, and arguably untenable.
As J. P. Moreland has pointed out, if we understand having a first-person
perspective as a mental property, it is clearly an impure property. An impure
property is one that presupposes the existence of a particular. Thus a tree’s
property of being rooted is impure because it presupposes the existence of
particular roots: a tree without roots cannot be rooted. Likewise, the prop-
erty of having a first-person perspective (or subjectivity) presupposes the
existence of a mental subject that has that perspective.23 It is therefore not
coherent to substitute the property of having a first-person perspective for
the existence of a mental subject. First-person perspectives are ontologi-
cally dependent on mental subjects, as the roundness of a ball (that property
instance or mode) is dependent on the ball.
Less obviously, if we understand the intentionality of thoughts as merely a
property, it is arguably also an impure one, one that presupposes the existence
of a mental subject. Our evidence for this is that we confidently and literally
attribute nonderived intentionality only to mental subjects. While books and
computers may contain information, most philosophers agree that inscriptions
in books and states of computers are not intrinsically about anything: they can
be said to exhibit intentionality only in the derived sense that persons whose
mental states have nonderived intentionality can take inscriptions or com-
puter states to be about other things. And, as the brain is physically described
by neuroscience, it does not exhibit intentionality either. This is because any
power the brain has to represent the world must be limited to what arises from
its physical interactions with the world, but intentionality clearly transcends
physical causation. We can think of future events (a vacation), unrealized
possibilities (a vacation that is cancelled), actually nonexistent objects (lepre-
chauns), and necessarily nonexistent objects (round squares). It is safe to say
that future events, unrealized possibilities, and nonexistent objects have no
physical causal power to make us think of them. And so intentionality does
not appear to result from any causal power of the brain, but is rather a power
of mental subjects.
So, if first-person perspectives and intentionality are ontologically depen-
dent on mental subjects, they presuppose that mental subjects really exist
and so the existence of mental subjects cannot be explained away simply
by viewing first-person perspectives and intentionality as emergent men-
tal properties. If this is right (and it will take another chapter to defend it
in detail), the mere property dualism espoused by Nonreductive CP is an
unavailable position.
Setting those objections to the side, we may also notice that in order for
Nonreductive CP to remain physicalist, it must claim that the informational
content of our thoughts derives from the physical base states of the brain. If
it does not, it is false that our thoughts are exclusively determined by physi-
cal properties of the brain, and if nonphysical determinants of our thoughts
are allowed, we do not have a physicalist theory of mind. On physicalism,
our ability to think that an object has some property F must be determined
by the fact that our brain has some property G, and so our power to represent
objects and qualities must be limited by the resources in the brain. As we have
seen, these resources only indicate finite, imperfect, and temporal objects and
qualities; they do not contain any information about what is infinite, perfect,
and eternal that could be used to form divine concepts. What I am suggesting
here is a principle of representational inheritance (RI):
(RI) For any thought T, if T’s representing an object O1 as F derives from an

object O2’s being G (where O2 may be an extra-mental object or an interme-
diary state of the senses or the brain), then the information required for T to
represent O1 as F must be inherited from O2’s being G.
Notice it is not required by RI that O1 actually is F, since we are capable of

misrepresentation (e.g., when we think that our mother’s patience is infinite,
or that some Danish bakery was perfect, etc.). But our ability to think (truly
or falsely) that O1 is F does require that we can present something as being
F, and the informational content of the thought, “that’s an F” must have
a source. Now, if Nonreductive CP is true, then the proximal cause of the
thought that O1 is F is some brain state (O2’s being G). But as we have seen,
no physical state of the brain indicates the existence of an infinite, perfect, or
eternal being, so in this case, there is no information present in O2’s being G
that could account for the ability to present O1 as F (infinite, perfect, eternal).
This, I believe, reflects the fact that our representational capacities are
limited by general principles governing the transmission of information.
As Fred Dretske argues, the flow of information obeys a basic conservation
law. He calls it the Xerox principle because it is illustrated by the process of
photocopying: a copy can preserve all of the information in the original(s) or
it may lose some (a bad copy, low toner, etc.); but a copy can never contain
more information than is found in the original(s) from which it is derived.24
The Xerox principle expresses the simple idea that the transmission of
information is conservative: the informational signal that a system receives
can contain no more information that the sum of its informational sources.
Applied to nonreductive physicalism, if thoughts are entirely determined by
physical base states of the brain, then a thought cannot contain any informa-
tion about F-ness (so that it can represent O1 as F) that does not derive from
84 Angus Menuge
the properties of its physical base state (O2’s being G). If this is correct, then
Nonreductive CP fares no better than Reductive CP in accounting for our
possession of divine concepts, since information about infinite, perfect, and
eternal beings cannot be inherited by our thoughts from their physical base
states in the brain.
Proponents of both Reductive and Nonreductive CP may protest that my
argument is unfair. After all, CP is not standard physicalism, which assumes
the materialist thesis that there are no immaterial substances. CP affirms that
God (an immaterial substance) exists and causally interacts with the world,
so even if persons are identical with (or emerge from, or are constituted
by) living physical organisms, still it seems that God could bring it about
that physical states of the brain are (or generate) representations of divine
qualities. And obviously, if God’s divine qualities are causally responsible
for our having representations of them, our divine concepts are valid (rooted
in objective reality).
The Bottleneck Argument

My response is what I call the bottleneck argument. If our divine concepts
are acquired, then physicalism requires that God works through physical
means to generate those concepts. For otherwise, God, an immaterial being,
is required as a direct explanation of some of our psychological capacities
and so the physicalist thesis that our psychological capacities are exclusively
determined by physical properties of the brain is false. However, although
God Himself is infinite, perfect, and eternal, all of the physical means through
which, on physicalism, He must work, are finite, imperfect, and temporal.
So these means do not appear able to bear the information required to form
divine concepts. To use an analogy with modern digital communication, the
physical links between God and the brain do not have the “bandwidth” to
transmit information about a divine being. If so, there is still an informational
“bottleneck” between God and our thoughts: brain states cannot contain the
information necessary to be (or generate) divine concepts. As an analogy,
suppose someone sends you a jpeg file of a Rembrandt painting. The painting
contains information in continuous form (smooth areas of paint), but the jpeg
can only capture a digital approximation using discrete color points (pixels).
Even if the jpeg does derive from the original artwork, its limited resolution
means it cannot fully capture the original, and on close inspection, the jpeg
misrepresents the original as being made up of pixels. Likewise, whatever
states and operations God may cause in the brain, they cannot adequately rep-
resent God as infinite, perfect, or eternal, and they would in fact misrepresent
God as finite, imperfect, and temporal. (Why we should think finite, imper-
fect, temporal souls are any better off is a question to which we will return.)
Now one might balk at this, and argue that God’s omnipotence means that
He can simply make it the case that we have divine concepts. But there are
problems with this response. If the bottleneck argument is correct about the
limitations of physical states to bear information, then if God does make it the
case that we have divine concepts, the information that these concepts bear is
not derived from the physical base states of the brain (their limitations have
simply been overridden). But if that is the case, physicalism is false: it is not
true that all aspects of our thoughts depend on our physical states. If God
simply makes it the case that whenever we are in brain state B, our thoughts
involve divine concepts, what makes it possible for us to have those concepts
derives directly from God and not from B. So there are aspects of our thought
that can be explained only by the direct action of an immaterial being, God,
which is not a physicalist view.
Now a theist might claim that causation is simply a reliable, regular con-
nection decreed by God, and that if God decrees that certain brain states are
followed by thoughts involving divine concepts, then the former cause the
latter, even if the information in the concepts does not derive from the brain
states. One problem with this response is that it appears to endorse occasion-
alism: being in brain state B is not really sufficient to produce a divine con-
cept; rather, on the occasion of being in brain state B, God produces a divine
concept. This, again, is hardly a physicalist view, since the content of our
thoughts depends on the direct, special action of an immaterial being. And
it is questionable that B really is a cause. B might be a cause of something
mental, but regarding our divine mental concepts in particular, it seems rather
to be a noncausal condition of divine causation, and a “cause” only in the
vulgar sense that humans conditioned by Humean association will continue
to call it one.
But even if this response did account for divine concepts, it would not
explain knowledge of the divine. If the physical “causes” of the divine con-
cepts do not contain any information about a divine being’s attributes, those
“causes” would be just as they are even if no such attributes existed. So, it is
only a lucky coincidence that our divine concepts happen to be valid, because
in fact, we have those concepts only because there is a being with divine
attributes who produces divine concepts on the occasion that the physical
“causes” obtain. In terms of their intrinsic information-bearing capacity, there
is no reason that the physical base states that “generate” our divine concepts
could not exist even though the base states were not caused by a being with
those attributes. So if one wants to maintain an attenuated sense in which
the brain states “cause” divine concepts, still they do not provide knowledge
of God, since it is only a coincidence that any beliefs about God employing
those concepts are true. (One cannot know something if one is only right by
coincidence in believing it.)25
86 Angus Menuge
True, one can plausibly argue that our possession of divine concepts
independently justifies belief in God since the informational content of these
concepts is derivable only from God Himself. But since that informational
content is not present in the physical base states of our brain but derives
directly from God, an immaterial being, this is not a physicalist account of
the mind: it again implies that our thoughts are not exclusively directly deter-
mined by physical causes.26
I conclude that physicalist anthropology does not adequately explain how
we can acquire knowledge of God. Either the divine concepts cannot be con-
structed, because of the bottleneck of the brain, or if they are, it is only by
routine appeal to the intervention of an immaterial being, God, and this is not
a physicalist theory of mind.
Innate Divine Concepts

But perhaps we do not need to acquire knowledge of God. Perhaps God
engrafts divine concepts into our being, so that we have an innate capacity
to come to know Him under the right conditions (e.g., through contemplat-
ing nature or scripture). I have no problem with this proposal per se: in fact,
I have defended it.27 But it is very difficult to reconcile it with physicalism.
For one thing, if God engrafts divine concepts into us by bypassing the
bottleneck of the brain, then our psychological capacities do not exclusively
depend on physical base states of the brain. In fact, God becomes a sort of
surrogate soul for each person doing work that dualists attribute to those per-
sons’ creaturely souls. And there are several other serious problems.
If God engrafts divine concepts into our being, then we must be the sort
of unified, persistent entities capable of having these (and other) concepts at
and over time (i.e., persons). Encoding information about God in a book or
on a computer would do no good because both the book and the computer
are impersonal aggregates of parts: they lack substantive unity at and over
time and cannot be the subject of any concepts about God. But the problem
for physicalism is that the human brain is also an impersonal aggregate of
parts, constantly in flux, and this does not explain the emergence of a single,
persistent person capable of understanding concepts at and over time.
This problem is more acute when we look at the brain in more detail, and
consider its capacity to generate our personal mental life. As we saw, pro-
ponents of CP may agree with dualists that persons require a “first-person
perspective,” a subject that has and understands concepts at and over time.
On this view, the “I” is a nonsubstantial mental subject, perhaps the property
of having a stream of consciousness, or the potential for one, one that reduces
to, or emerges from, the brain (or particular states of the brain). But, setting
aside the worry that having a first-person perspective is an impure property,
Dean Zimmerman raises a further difficulty. If we look in the brain for plau-
sible physical candidates for the purpose of being, or generating, the “I,” they
all “appear surprisingly like clouds on close inspection: it is not clear where
they begin and end, in space or time. Many particles are in the process of
being assimilated or cast off; they are neither clearly ‘in,’ nor clearly ‘out.’”28
This creates a problem of vagueness about just what matter constitutes a brain
at and over time. Just as there are many sets of particles with an equal claim
to be a particular cloud, there are many sets of particles with an equal claim
to be a particular brain. As Igor Gasparov has argued, this vagueness about
what constitutes a brain is inherited by any mental life that emerges, with
the result that we have no reason to say that there is a single person either
at or over time.29 And as Joshua Farris has pointed out in response to Lynne
Rudder Baker, this matters, because “The first-person perspective requires a
metaphysical grounding, a ‘what’ and a thing that persists in and through time
to account for the unity of consciousness,”30 but the physical resources of the
brain do not seem adequate to generate it.
Gasparov points out that at a time, there is a set of many clouds of particles
in the brain, C1, C2, . . . Cn, such that each of the Ci (1≤ i ≥ n) has an equal
claim to be the brain. This creates a synchronic problem of identity: if at time
t, any one of the Ci generates a personal subject31 capable of understanding
concepts, then all of the Ci should do so. But it would be an implausible
example of massive, systematic overdetermination if all the Ci generated the
same subject.32 So it is most probable that the Ci would generate multiple
psychological subjects, S1, S2, . . . Sn. But then we do not have a plausible
account of how just one subject per human being comes to understand divine
concepts.
A similar problem surfaces when we consider the brain over time. The
brain is a complex, dynamic system in a state of constant flux, with particles
constantly being added or lost. So, over time, any particular brain exhibits
vagueness: even if we could specify one and only one cloud C* that is the
brain at each time, over time there would still be a sequence of different
clouds of particles, C*1, C*2, . . . C*n and each of the C*i (1≤ i ≥ n) would
have an equal claim to be the brain. This is a diachronic problem of identity:
it would be an implausible case of massive, systematic overdetermination if
each of the C*i generated the same subject. Instead, it is more probable that
there would be a sequence of nonidentical, instantaneous self-stages, S*1,
S*2, . . . S*n. But if that is so, even if divine concepts are engrafted innately,
it seems that the psychological subject that initially owned those concepts
would not persist over time and so those concepts could not be recollected, or
if they were, still would not count as a subject’s recollecting its own concepts.
Thus, it is not clear why an adult self-stage Sk would be able to access
divine concepts engrafted into an earlier, nonidentical self-stage Sj that no
88 Angus Menuge
longer exists. But even if this is possible, because divine concepts are some-
how transmitted from one self-stage to the next, this would not be an account
of a single self recollecting its own innate concepts because Sk is not identical
to Sj (Sk was “born” more recently than Sj), so, bizarrely, Sk would be recol-
lecting someone else’s (Sj’s) innate concepts. To overcome this, God would
apparently need to engraft divine concepts separately in each self-stage. This
is essentially the “constant emanation” theory of divine concepts that we will
consider in the next section.
To his credit, Kevin Corcoran is aware that physicalism cannot plausibly
ground personal identity in the mere physical aggregate of parts in an organ-
ism. Corcoran agrees with Zimmerman and Gasparov that, viewed as physi-
cal aggregates, human bodies are indeed like clouds (or storms): “Human
bodies . . . are storms of atoms moving through space and time. They take on
new stuff . . . and throw off old stuff as they go.”33 But he denies that human
bodies find their identity merely in the atoms themselves. Rather, following
John Locke, Corcoran maintains that the identity of a living organism is not
determined by a particular aggregate of parts, but only requires that some
aggregate or other is united by a common life. He defines this life as a “bio-
logical event . . . that is remarkably stable, well individuated, self-directing,
self-maintaining and homeodynamic.”34 What maintains the identity of the
living human body over time is immanent causation, in which “a state x of
thing A brings about a consequent state y in A itself.”35 Clearly, if organisms
derive their identity from such a common life which unites various clouds
of particles at a time and connects them over time via immanent causation,
concerns about the vagueness of the human body (including human brains)
as physical aggregates are irrelevant. In that case, it may be that the identity
of a human person is grounded in the identity of the living human organism
that constitutes it. And then there is no problem with a person recollecting its
own divine concepts.
However, a major problem with Corcoran’s solution to the problem of
personal identity is that it does not seem to be a physicalist one. Corco-
ran’s description of life as “self-directing” and “self-maintaining” is surely
teleological: these do not describe simple physical states of a system, but
goals that it has (living systems are goal-directed). Now either this teleol-
ogy is a fundamental part of the physical world or it emerges. If the former,
this hardly sounds like physicalism: physicalism generally holds that at the
base (nonemergent) level—the world described by physics—there is only
undirected efficient causation. If the latter, and teleology emerges from the
nonteleological, this is scarcely less puzzling than the claim that conscious
persons emerge from an unconscious, impersonal world. And if teleology is
emergent, then the arguments of Zimmerman and Gasparov can be adapted
to show that it is unlikely that just one teleological system (one life) emerges
from so many different “storms of atoms” at and over time, each storm having
an equal claim to belong to a human body and an equal capacity to generate
that body’s life.
A second problem is that Corcoran’s description of a human life seems
question-begging. To talk of a human life as “self-directing” and “self-
maintaining” assumes that there is a single unified, persistent human life,
and how such a thing emerges is what needs to be explained. Reapplying
Zimmerman and Gasparov’s argument shows that this is not trivial and can-
not be taken for granted. The same problem besets Corcoran’s appeal to
immanent causation, since it simply assumes that there is some well-defined,
persistent entity A, such that one of A’s states, x, produces a further state y in
A. Let A be a particular living human organism. What is it about the underly-
ing clouds of particles that make it the case that there is just one persistent A?
If the answer is that a life is radically emergent or sui generis, in the sense
that it has a kind of unity and persistence not predicted by the underlying
physical constituents of the body, then the account appears to be vitalist,
since it relies on a fundamental difference of kind between living and nonliv-
ing systems. But if so, Corcoran’s attempt to ground the identity of human
persons in the living human bodies that constitute them avoids psychological
(substance) dualism only by embracing biological dualism. This no longer
sounds like physicalism. Even supposing Corcoran’s account successfully
grounds the identity of single, persistent persons (one per body, at and over
time) capable of having and recollecting divine concepts, it appears to do so
by abandoning core physicalist doctrines.
I conclude that if divine concepts are innate, CP fails to provide a plausible,
physicalist account of the personal identity required for single persistent per-
sons to possess and recollect those concepts.
Constant Emanation of Divine Concepts

Perhaps divine concepts are neither acquired nor innate. Instead, perhaps God
refreshes our brains (and hence minds) with these concepts by a constant
emanation of them. Then it does not matter if our brains are incapable of
acquiring divine concepts through physical means (such as our brains inter-
acting with nature and physical copies of the Bible), and perhaps it does not
matter if we cannot recollect innate divine concepts, because God directly and
continually forms in us the concepts necessary to know Him.
To be sure, God could do it this way. But the emanation theory is not a
good fit for physicalism because it makes at least some of our psychological
capacities depend on the continual direct intervention of an immaterial being.
As an explanation, emanation also seems ad hoc and to violate Occam’s
razor, as it is far more complex than necessary. Surely an omnipotent God
90 Angus Menuge
who wishes to achieve a regular result (all human beings can access divine
concepts) can so make us that this is a necessary, lawful consequence of our
natures. Dualists will argue that God can achieve this result by creating us as
embodied souls, because souls, as unified persistent immaterial subjects, do
not have the same limitations as material objects like the brain. If these souls
are immaterial substances created with innate divine concepts as modes, then
the same soul can access these concepts at and over time. This is because
souls are substantively simple and persistent: their mental states are insepa-
rable parts (modes) so that one and the same soul can access many divine
concepts at the same time, and they remain the same substance over time,
despite changes in the particular content of their thoughts and in the physical
states of their embodiment.
To the extent that the dualist can flesh out such an account, the emanation
theory can justly be criticized for committing a real “God of the gaps” fallacy:
it multiplies beyond necessity the number of gaps in nature which God must
fill.36 And it calls into question whether God really made us in His image, as
creatures designed to know Him, so that we could carry out our primary voca-
tion to be stewards of the rest of creation. In matters of divine knowledge,
it seems we are all afflicted by Alzheimer’s disease and must each day learn
what a previous self-stage knew about God. Before accepting this conclusion,
one would need a very strong argument to show that no other alternative that
is more elegant and in keeping with our status as image bearers was open to
God, and it seems unlikely such an argument is forthcoming.
Finally, there are also biblical concerns about the emanation theory. Both
the Old and New Testament describe knowledge of God as an achievement,
something we can gain and retain, and something which can increase. This
implies that the same person can go from not knowing to knowing God and
from knowing something about God to knowing Him better. For example,
Proverbs 2:4–5 says: “if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden
treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowl-
edge of God.” Again, God tells us He wants us to acquire this knowledge:
“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather
than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6). And Paul exhorts us to “walk in a manner
worthy of the Lord . . . bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the
knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10). This knowledge is important to God’s
plan of salvation for mankind, for He “desires all people to be saved and to
come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). But on the emanation
theory, it is difficult to understand why knowledge of God is an achievement,
and why there is apparently such wide variation in people’s knowledge of
God.
If divine concepts are acquired, it is easy to see that some would more fully
master these concepts than others and how greater diligence in thinking about
God and searching for greater understanding of Him could lead to greater
knowledge. Likewise, if divine concepts are innate, they might either be
neglected and lay idle or be exercised frequently, leading to lesser or greater
knowledge. But on the emanation theory, God’s continually rewriting our
brains with divine concepts would serve as a constant reminder, making it
difficult to see how anyone could avoid having significant knowledge of God.
Despite the natural man’s willful suppression of the divine, on the emanation
theory, one could not easily avoid thinking about the transcendent attributes
of God, and so it seems likely that resistance to knowing God would, sooner
or later, be overcome.
And one might reasonably predict that all people without brain deficits
would at some time or other eventually acquire about the same knowledge
of God, making it difficult to understand why some appear to know God
much better than others ever will and how there can be people (e.g., Thomas
à Kempis, Martin Luther, John Bunyan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C. S. Lewis,
Richard Swinburne) whose knowledge of God appears to have grown enor-
mously over time.
More generally, the emanation theory suggests that God literally brain-
washes us with knowledge of Him, making it hard to see why there are any
atheists. At the very least, a defender of the emanation theory would seem to
need an elaborate theory that explains the wide distribution of beliefs about
God that we actually find. It is true that scripture speaks of our willful sup-
pression of the knowledge of God (Rom. 1:18 and Rom. 3:23), but this is a
general problem for all mankind and so does not explain why the resistance
to knowing God is greater in some people than others. A defender of the
emanation theory would therefore need to appeal to factors other than pos-
session of divine concepts that vary sufficiently among people to account for
the diversity of belief about God.
DUALISM AND DIVINE CONCEPTS
Some may respond to my argument with a tu quoque: CP may not give a

plausible account of our possession of divine concepts, but why suppose that
substance dualism fares any better? This challenge must be taken seriously,
and it deserves another whole chapter. Here, I can only outline my response.
First, I will make a concession. On my view, appeal to creaturely souls
does not make it any easier to see how we could acquire divine concepts. The
finite, imperfect, temporal interactions of finite, imperfect, temporal souls
do not account for the formation of the concepts of infinity, perfection, and
eternity. Thus, my sympathy is with Descartes and Leibniz: divine concepts
are innate, engrafted into our souls by God Himself. Notice, that because the
92 Angus Menuge
dualist is committed to finite immaterial beings (souls) doing causal work,

it is not an embarrassment if we sometimes must directly appeal to an infi-
nite immaterial being to causally explain some aspect of our psychological
capacities.
Still, a critic may push back: why think that any concepts God engrafts into
a soul are capable of presenting God as infinite, perfect, and eternal? Won’t
the limitations of the soul (a finite, imperfect, and temporal being) present the
same difficulties as the limitations of the physical brain? Here, my response
appeals to what we know about intentionality. First, we know that intention-
ality is a self-transcendent property of persons: our ability to think of things
transcends our own limitations. Thus, someone who is five feet tall has no
difficulty in thinking of something much taller, like Mount Everest and a fool
has no difficulty in thinking of someone wiser than himself. More impres-
sively, as Pascal noted, while physically I am like a speck in a vast cosmos,
“through thought I grasp it.”37 But if we can grasp the totality of space-time
(something presupposed by the naturalistic statement that space-time is all
there is), this requires our understanding to transcend the temporal. Although
we are time-bound creatures, our thought contacts the eternal. Likewise,
whether or not infinite sets really exist in a Platonic sense (a vexed question
in the philosophy of mathematics), certainly finite mathematicians can think
of them and prove theorems about them. And Descartes seems right that in
order for us to know that we are imperfect, we must have a prior concept of
perfection. So if it is a fact that intentionality is self-transcendent property of
persons, the real question is whether dualism provides a better explanation
of that fact than does physicalism. I submit that it does.
For second, as we saw earlier, intentionality cannot be explained by the
physical causal powers of organisms, and since the only noncontroversial
cases of nonderived intentionality are mental subjects, it is reasonable to
think that intentionality is a power that mental subjects have qua mental
beings. It is therefore more plausible that souls, rather than brains, have the
self-transcending power of intentionality, and with that power, finite, imper-
fect, and temporal souls could think of an infinite, perfect, and eternal being
if they were equipped with the right concepts. But if God wishes all people to
come to know Him, it is plausible that He could and would provide us with
the particular self-transcendent concepts required to do this. This is one way
in which we clearly reflect the image of God: we alone among creatures are
made so that we can come to know God.
Third, once creatures are granted the gift of souls with nonderived inten-
tionality and the innate concepts required to think of God, a further advantage
of souls is that, being simple mental substances, they can maintain a mental
subject’s identity at and over time, despite the constant flux of the physical
organism. As a result, a mental subject stocked at birth38 with divine concepts
can later gain knowledge of God. Thus, given innate divine concepts, one and
the same mental subject might one day employ those concepts to conclude
that nature is the handiwork of God or that the Jesus of the Scriptures is God
in human flesh.
CONCLUSION
There seem to be three main ways of explaining our possession of divine

concepts: they are acquired, they are innate, or they are emanations of God.
But each alternative is difficult to square with CP. It does not seem that
transcendent concepts can be acquired by any interaction of our brains with
the physical environment; if they are innate, that hardly helps unless there at
mental subjects which can access those concepts at and over time; and if they
are constant emanations of God, CP hardly counts as a physicalist theory of
human beings, since our psychological capacities depend on interventions by
an immaterial being.
Moreover, to the extent that any of these theories rely on the actions of an
immaterial God, it makes it hard to see why the idea of an immaterial soul is
found so problematic by proponents of CP. If immaterial agency is objection-
able in general, then this conflicts with the Christian part of CP, since Chris-
tianity is a religion of divine providence and miracles. But if it is not, there
seems no compelling reason to say that souls are any more troubling than
God, which undercuts the physicalist part of CP. And if CP makes it difficult
to account for the knowledge of God that Christianity assumes is possible,
but the capacity for such knowledge is at least plausible if we have souls,
we have good reason to reaffirm the traditional view that human persons are
embodied souls.
NOTES
1. The identity view is defended by Peter van Inwagen and Trenton Merricks. See
van Inwagen, “A Materialist Ontology of the Human Person,” in Persons: Human and
Divine, eds. Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2007), 199–215, and Trenton Merricks, “How to Live Forever without Saving
Your Soul: Physicalism and Immortality,” in Soul, Body and Survival: Essays on the
Metaphysics of Human Persons, ed. Kevin Corcoran (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 2001), 183–200.
2. See Nancey Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2006).
3. The constitution view is defended by Kevin Corcoran and Lynne Rudder Baker.
See Corcoran, “Physical Persons and Postmortem Survival without Temporal Gaps,”
94 Angus Menuge
in Soul, Body and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons, ed. Kevin
Corcoran, 201–217, and his Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alter-
native to the Soul (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006); also see Baker, Per-
sons and Bodies: A Constitution View (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
2000), her “Materialism with a Human Face,” in Soul, Body and Survival: Essays on
the Metaphysics of Human Persons, ed. Kevin Corcoran, 159–180, and her Naturalism
and the First-Person Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
4. See Luke Van Horn, “Merricks’s Soulless Savior,” Faith and Philosophy 27/3
(July 2010): 330–341.
5. See Jonathan Loose, “Constitution and the Falling Elevator,” Philosophia
Christi 14, no. 2 (Winter 2012): 439–449.
6. Michael Rea argues that, on physicalist (naturalist) assumptions, there are
no well-defined, persistent objects of knowledge; see Rea’s “Naturalism and mate-
rial objects,” in Naturalism: A Critical Analysis, eds. William Lane Craig and J. P.
Moreland (New York: Routledge, 2000), 110–132, and his World without Design: The
Ontological Consequences of Naturalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Robert Koons further argues that, on physicalism, even if such objects of knowledge
existed, their being persistent objects is not a causal power they have, since a physical
aggregate at a time has just the same causal powers whether or not it composes a per-
sistent physical object, and so we still could not know them; see Koons’s “Epistemic
Objections to Materialism,” in The Waning of Materialism, eds. Robert C. Koons
and George Bealer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 291. R. Scott Smith
argues that physicalism fails to explain our acquisition of concepts that correspond to
extra-mental reality. See Smith’s Naturalism and our Knowledge of Reality: Testing
Religious Truth Claims (Farnham, UK: Routledge, 2016).
7. Obviously, I cannot consider each epistemological theory in detail, but my
argument does show that CP faces difficulties if it relies on any of the following:
(1) foundationalist theories of knowledge that depend on empirically acquired or
innate concepts; (2) standard causal theories of knowledge, for example, the reli-
ability theory; and (3) reformed epistemology. These theories all rely on some
acquired or innate concepts to make knowledge possible. It is conceivable that a
proponent of CP will propose some alternative epistemology which is immune to
my objections.
8. While the apophatic way emphasizes our knowing God indirectly, by what He
is not, texts like Romans 1:19–20 appear to support our having positive knowledge
about God: “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has
shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world in the things
that have been made.”
9. It is of course possible that there is a fourth alternative I have not thought of.
But for this to be a serious objection, one would have to flesh out this alternative,
make it independently plausible as a path to knowing God, and show that, on this
account, CP could avoid the epistemic difficulties facing the other three alternatives.
10. Actually, I think there are serious problems here. It is not at all obvious that
a physical object can have a concept. Notice that we are generally willing to allow
that books and computers contain information, but not that they contain concepts or
thoughts. As J. P. Moreland has argued, concepts (and thoughts) appear to be insepa-
rable parts of simple, mental subjects, and not the sort of thing that can be located in
an aggregate of separable parts like a book, computer, or brain. See J. P. Moreland,
The Recalcitrant Imago Dei (London: SCM Press, 2009), chapter 5.
11. In general, property F is not reducible to property G if F has causal powers
lacked by G. So a mental property is not physically reducible if it has causal powers
not possessed by any properties of the brain.
12. Thomas Hobbes, “Of the Consequences or Train of Imaginations,” Leviathan,
ed. Marshall Missner (New York: Pearson Longman, 2008), 13. For further develop-
ment of this argument, see my “Knowledge of Abstracta: A Challenge to Material-
ism,” Philosophia Christi 18, no. 1 (Summer 2016): 7–27.
13. Thanks to Charles Taliaferro for pressing this point in his comments on an
earlier draft of this chapter.
14. René Descartes, “Third Meditation,” in Meditationes de prima philosophia /
Meditations on First Philosophy, ed. and trans. by George Heffernan (Notre Dame,
IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 137, 139.
16. Descartes, “Third Meditation,” 139.
17. It is conceivable that a reductive materialist would not opt for an empiricist
epistemology. But both historically and today, most reductive materialists have been
empiricists, as they believe materialism finds its justification in empirical science,
which they see as the most reliable source of knowledge.
18. For example, see Robert C. Koons and George Bealer’s The Waning of Mate-
rialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010) and Thomas Nagel’s Mind and
Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Cer-
tainly False (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
19. A nonreductive physicalist can also deny property dualism. Searle’s position
is that mental properties are higher order physical properties of the brain. They
are causally, but not ontologically, reducible to the lower level physical properties
of the brain, but causal reduction is enough to make the higher level properties
physical.
20. Some philosophers claim to be emergent subject dualists without affirming that
they are substance dualists. It is fair to say, though, that the mental “subject” does
most of the same work as a mental substance.
21. In practice, this is easily done by the process of “minding up” the brain, attrib-
uting distinctively mental properties and powers to the brain without showing how
they derive from the brain’s physical capacities.
22. See, for example, Kevin Corcoran, Rethinking Human Nature, 67
23. See, for example, Kevin Corcoran, Rethinking Human Nature, 68 and Lynne
Baker’s Naturalism and the First-Person Perspective.
24. For discussion, see J. P. Moreland, The Recalcitrant Imago Dei, 132–133.
25. Fred Dretske, Knowledge and the Flow of Information (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1981), 57.
26. Thus, to use the classic example, if one looks at a broken clock that stopped at
2 o’clock, concludes that it is 2 o’clock, and, by coincidence, it is 2 o’clock, one has
96 Angus Menuge
a true belief but not knowledge, because there is no reliable connection between the
time and the representation of the time by the clock.
27. My view is that to qualify as physicalist, CP must assert that the direct causal
determinants of our psychological states are physical properties of the brain. Thus,
on physicalism, an immaterial being like God can only influence psychological states
indirectly, by influencing the physical properties of the brain.
28. Angus Menuge, “Knowledge of Abstracta: A Challenge to Materialism.”
29. Dean Zimmerman, “From Experience to Experiencer,” in The Soul Hypothesis,
ed. Mark C. Baker and Stewart Goetz, 168–196 (New York: Continuum, 2011), 187.
30. Igor Gasparov, “Emergent Dualism and the Challenge of Vagueness,” Faith
and Philosophy 32, no. 4 (October 2015): 432–438.
31. Joshua Farris, “Bodily-Constituted Persons, Soulish Persons, and the Imago
Dei: The Problem from a Definite I,” Philosophy and Theology 28, no. 2 (2016):
455–468, 463.
32. Note that this subject is not being construed in dualistic terms as an immate-
rial substance: for nonreductive materialists like Baker, Corcoran and Murphy, the
“subject” is just a unified cluster of emergent psychological properties capable of a
first-person perspective, etc.
33. Overdetermination can be plausible in particular cases. If 100 soldiers in a
firing squad fire on a prisoner simultaneously, then the prisoner’s death is overdeter-
mined because it has many individually sufficient causes. But overdetermination is
implausible, and a violation of Occam’s razor, when it is systematic or ubiquitous.
Thus, if it is claimed that both a mental act of volition and a simultaneous state of the
brain are individually sufficient for every intentional action we perform, we feel that
one or other of the causes must be redundant. Indeed reductive physicalists like Jaeg-
won Kim uses such an argument to show that irreducible mental causes are excluded
from independent causal power by their subvenient physical bases (the “exclusion
argument”). See Jaegwon Kim, Philosophy of Mind, 3d ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 2011), chapter 7.
34. Corcoran, Rethinking Human Nature, 72.
35. Corcoran, “Physical Persons and Postmortem Survival without Temporal
Gaps,” 206.
37. See, for example: William Hasker, The Emergent Self (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1999); E. J. Lowe, Personal Agency: The Metaphysics of Mind
and Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); J. P. Moreland, The Recalci-
trant Imago Dei; Angus Menuge, “The Ontological Argument From Reason: Why
Compatibilist Accounts of Reasoning Fail,” Philosophia Christi 13, no. 1 (Summer
2011): 59–74, and “Neuroscience, Rationality and Free Will: A Critique of John
Searle’s Libertarian Naturalism,” Philosophia Christi 15, no. 1 (Summer 2013):
81–96; and Richard Swinburne, Mind Brain and Free Will (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2013).
38. Blaise Pascal, Pensées, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer (New York: Penguin Books,
1966), #113, 59.
39. Or whenever it is that God does this: the matter has been disputed.
Baker, Lynne Rudder. Naturalism and the First-Person Perspective. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2013.
Corcoran, Kevin. Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alternative to
the Soul. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006.
Gasparov, Igor. “Emergent Dualism and the Challenge of Vagueness.” Faith and
Philosophy 32, no. 4 (October 2015): 432–438.
Koons, Robert C. “Epistemic Objections to Materialism.” In The Waning of Material-
ism, edited by Robert C. Koons and George Bealer, 281–306. New York: Oxford
Menuge, Angus. “Neuroscience, Rationality and Free Will: A Critique of John Sear-
le’s Libertarian Naturalism.” Philosophia Christi 15, no. 1 (Summer 2013): 81–96.
———. “Knowledge of Abstracta: A Challenge to Materialism.” Philosophia Christi
18, no. 1 (Summer 2016): 7–27.
Moreland, James Porter. The Recalcitrant Imago Dei. London: SCM Press, 2009.
Murphy, Nancey. Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2006.
Rea, Michael. “Naturalism and material objects.” In Naturalism: A Critical Analysis,
edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, 110–132. New York: Routledge,
2000.
Smith, R. Scott. Naturalism and our Knowledge of Reality: Testing Religious Truth
Claims. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012.
Swinburne, Richard. Mind Brain and Free Will. Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press, 2013.
Zimmerman, Dean. “From Experience to Experiencer.” In The Soul Hypothesis,
edited by Mark C. Baker and Stewart Goetz, 168–196. New York: Continuum,
2011.
Chapter 5
Physicalism, Divine Eternality,

and Life Everlasting
R. Keith Loftin and R. T. Mullins
Contemporary Christian reflection on anthropology can sometimes be a funny

thing. At times, we cannot help but suspect that there is a disconnect between
the doctrine of God and certain claims about human nature. For instance,
consider the often quoted, but rarely fleshed out, interaction problem raised
against substance dualism: how can an immaterial substance interact with a
physical substance? If this is a problem—and we doubt that it is—it should be
a problem for the doctrine of God, as well.1 The Christian God is a personal
(indeed tripersonal) immaterial substance that causally interacts with the phys-
ical universe.2 If the Christian theologian wishes to affirm that an immaterial
God can interact with the physical universe, she cannot deny the possibility
that an immaterial soul could interact with a body. In other words, a Christian
who is a physicalist ought not to raise the interaction problem for substance
dualism without recognizing the problem this causes for her doctrine of God.
We point out this example as one, among many, possible disconnects we
see between the doctrine of God and theological-philosophical anthropol-
ogy. In this chapter, we wish to focus on another possible area of disconnect
between the doctrine of divine eternality and life everlasting. We maintain
that the eternal God wishes to grant humanity life everlasting. We will argue
that physicalism is not compatible with the Christian claim that the eternal
God is going to grant redeemed humanity life everlasting.
In the first section, we shall outline the key theological assumptions that are
guiding our thoughts. In the second section, we shall articulate the doctrine
of divine eternality, drawing out its implications for the philosophy of time,
personal identity through time, theological anthropology, and the doctrine
of life everlasting. In the third section, we shall argue that endurantism is
needed for God to grant us eternal life. In the fourth section, we shall argue
that physicalism is not compatible with endurantism.
99
100 R. Keith Loftin and R. T. Mullins
THEOLOGICAL ASSUMPTIONS
There are four theological assumptions that we wish to identify before mov-
ing forward. For the sake of transparency, we think it is helpful for readers to
have an understanding of our starting points as it should help readers better
grasp some of the arguments and moves that we make in later sections. Those
four assumptions are as follows: 1) the centrality of immortality to Christian
hope, 2) discontinuity and continuity between this life and the life to come,
3) the temporality of creation, and 4) constraints on theological adequacy.
Immortal Life
The promise of life everlasting is central to the message of Christian hope.
Whereas the way of the unrighteous leads to separation from the creator,
according to Christian teaching, the redeemed in Christ are granted life ever-
lasting (Jn. 3:14–16, 11:25–26; Matt. 25:46). What does this mean? Jesus
states: “Now this is eternal life—that they know you, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom you sent” (Jn. 17:3). In virtue of knowing God through
Christ, the redeemed are united into communion with God (Jn. 17:22–23),
that they may “remain in the Son and in the Father” (1 Jn. 2:24–25). As
Irenaeus explains, “the Lord thus has redeemed us . . . and has also poured
out the Spirit of the Father for the union and communion of God and man,
imparting indeed God to men by means of the Spirit, and, on the other hand,
attaching man to God by His own incarnation, and bestowing upon us at His
coming immortality durably and truly, by means of communion with God.”3
Life everlasting, then, involves being granted a share in God’s own life.
Echoing Irenaeus, in his sermon on 1 John 5:20, John Wesley describes life
everlasting as “the happy and holy communion which the faithful have with
God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”4 Integral to the Christian hope of life
everlasting is the promise of immortality (2 Tim. 1:10; 1 Cor. 15:53–54). God
cannot give humanity a gift that He does not have, but thankfully we worship
an immortal God. We believe that this gift of eternal life is grounded in the
immortal and eternal nature of God (1 Tim. 1:17, 6:14–16). We shall have
more to say on divine eternality below.
Discontinuity and Continuity

There is a soteriological theme in the New Testament that scholars often refer
to as the “now” and the “not yet.” Like many other theologians, we affirm
that the facets of this New Testament theme are important to any nuanced
conception of life everlasting.5 An interesting question that arises from this
New Testament theme is to what extent life everlasting is a present versus
Physicalism, Divine Eternality, and Life Everlasting 101
an as yet future reality. To be sure, the story of Christian salvation is of a

hope that includes a future resurrection of the dead where God will give us
glorified bodies that are made to last forever in a redeemed creation (1 Cor.
15:12–49). However, the New Testament witness also speaks of experiencing
this everlasting life in the here and now. Paul writes, “if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation; what is old has passed away—look, what is new has
come!” (2 Cor. 5:17). The fourth Gospel tells us “the one who believes in the
Son has eternal life” (3:36, 6:46), with John’s first epistle similarly stressing
believers’ present possession of life everlasting (1 Jn. 5:11–13). In short,
scripture gives us reason to think that our experience of life everlasting is
indeed a present reality that is had in our pre-resurrection life. This present
reality is granted upon new birth in Christ. But we further believe that the
redeemed look forward to a post-resurrection experience of life everlasting
that encompasses but also exceeds our present experience.
It is beyond our purpose fully to describe the sense(s) in which our pre-
resurrection experience of life everlasting is different from post-resurrection
experience of the same, yet we believe the scripture affirms that there is
an important continuity between the two. The typical claim from biblical
scholars and theologians is that the life to come will be characterized by the
presence of God’s Holy Spirit and an absence of sin, sickness, and death.6 So
there is a discontinuity between our present state and the life to come since
our present lives include sin, sickness, and death. However, there is impor-
tant continuity because the believer currently experiences the presence of the
Holy Spirit. Further, there is continuity between the two in that the one who
currently believes, the one who currently experiences the Holy Spirit, will
be the one who will receive immortality and enjoy life everlasting without
sin, sickness, and death. As Jesus makes clear, blessed are those who cur-
rently seek righteousness, for they will inherit the kingdom of heaven (Matt.
5:2–12).
To conceive life everlasting as something radically disconnected from
life “here and now” would be to fail to appreciate the biblical emphasis on
continuity in God’s program—a program of redeeming creation, rather than
annihilating and replacing it.7 This of course includes the Christian experi-
ence of life everlasting. God is not interested in replacing those who presently
mourn. Instead, God is interested in comforting those who presently mourn.
God is not interested in replacing the meek. He is interested in giving the
meek a redeemed earth (Matt. 5:2–12). Again: while our pre- versus post-
resurrection experiences of life everlasting are not qualitatively identical,
there is an essential continuity between the two. As Hans Weber notes, “if
there was no continuity whatsoever between both lives, the New Testament
idea of an ‘eternal life’ would be proven wrong, since it is not confined to the
absolute future but rather reaches from there to the present life before death.”8
The Temporality of Creation

This might seem like an odd theological affirmation since it is quite obvious
that the created order is temporal. We are making a stronger claim merely than
that God merely made a temporal universe. What we are affirming is that the
temporality of creation is a good thing, and that God is going to redeem the
temporality of creation. God did not make temporal life only to scrap it in the
eschaton. God made temporal life because it has value and makes several of
His purposes for creation possible. This is in stark contrast to claims that God
is going to bring about a timeless eschatological state of affairs.9 We think
that such a thing is not only impossible, but that it is unbiblical.10 Further, we
believe that a timeless life after death offers a far too radical kind of disconti-
nuity between the present life that God seeks to redeem and the life to come.
If the life everlasting of Christian hope is conceived as timeless, then one’s
understanding of God’s program of redeeming creation shall demand a radi-
cal discontinuity with our temporal experience here and now. Against this,
Miroslav Volf argues, “ultimate fulfillment is not only compatible with tempo-
rality but also unthinkable without it, partly because any intelligible notions
of both reconciliation and contentment in fact presuppose change . . . with the
erasure of temporality in the ‘life’ of the world to come, it takes away the pos-
sibility of communal peace and personal joy,” and this seems to us correct.11
Theological Adequacy
We readily acknowledge that there are different ways to articulate Christian
doctrines, but not all articulations are created equal. Our focus in this chapter
is the connection between the doctrines of God, theological anthropology, and
life everlasting. So there will be various nuances and systematic connections
at play in any given articulation of these doctrines. We believe that some
accounts of anthropology are theologically inadequate. For the purposes of this
chapter, we affirm a simple rule of thumb for judging if a particular account of
Christian doctrine is theologically adequate. It goes as follows: if a particular
rendering of the doctrine of anthropology cannot account for the hope of life
everlasting, something is wrong with that rendering. Perhaps it is false, or per-
haps it merely needs to be revised a bit. Given space constraints, we shall argue
that two popular versions of physicalist understandings of personal identity
over time cannot adequately account for the hope of life everlasting.
DIVINE ETERNALITY
We need to be clear about a peculiar stance that we take on divine eternality.

We reject the traditional claim that God is timeless. We modify the doctrine
of divine eternality in a way that we believe better reflects the basic teachings
of scripture and Christian doctrine. In order to understand our modification,

one must first understand the traditional view.
There are at least three questions about the philosophy of time that must
be answered in order properly to understand the traditional doctrine of divine
eternality, as well as our modification. These three questions are as follows.
1) The metaphysical question: what is time? 2) The ontological question:
what moments of time exist? 3) The persistence question: how does a person
persist through time?
Metaphysical Question
Traditionally, Christian theologians overwhelmingly have held to what is
called a relational theory of time.12 This view says that time exists if and only
if change occurs. This is because change creates a before and after. Christians
also overwhelming have held that one key characteristic of a temporal object
is that it undergoes change. Further, a key characteristic of an atemporal
object is that it does not undergo any kind of change.13
Near the end of the scholastic era and moving into the scientific revolu-
tion, various thinkers in the West began to reject the relational theory of time,
affirming instead a view called the absolute theory of time. On the absolute
theory, time is thought to exist without change (one might think that time
is dependent upon the existence of a substance that possibly can undergo
change, with this being all that is needed for time to exist).14 During this
period a fair number of thinkers, such as Samuel Clarke, believed God to be
temporal—or at least the substratum of time15—and capable of undergoing
certain kinds of changes. In their view, the eternal existence of God guar-
anteed the eternal existence of time, since God is a being that can possibly
undergo change.16 (More on divine temporality later.)
Ontological Question
Traditionally, Christians have held to a view called presentism.17 This view
says that only the present moment of time exists. The past no longer exists,
and the future does not yet exist. On presentism, the present moment of time
exhausts reality.18 There are no nonpresent objects in existence. This can
be contrasted with the view called eternalism according to which the past,
present, and future equally exist.19 By way of example, on eternalism, even
though we are not currently located in the year 1763, the year 1763 and its
occupants exist. On presentism, the year 1763 no longer exists since the pres-
ent moment of time exhausts reality.
Most contemporary proponents of eternalism grant that presentism is the
default view because of its intuitive nature. The intuitive pull of presentism
can be witnessed throughout the history of Christian thought.20 Augustine,
for example, takes presentism to be obviously true. Augustine’s most famous,

though not most important, treatment of time is found in his Confessions.
Throughout his discussion, he examines a series of puzzles that arise on pre-
sentism related to the measurement of time and how prophets might be able to
know the future. Near the end of his discussion he says, “It is now, however,
perfectly clear that neither the future nor the past are in existence.”21 Even
though various philosophical puzzles arise from presentism, Augustine sees
no reason to give it up.
Despite the intuitive pull of presentism, eternalism has grown in popularity
since the advent of Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Proponents
of eternalism often claim that the special theory of relativity entails eternal-
ism. However, this is far from obvious since a fair number of philosophers
and scientists see no reason to give up presentism on the basis of a theory that
fails to capture the fundamental laws of nature. Unfortunately, we do not have
space to go into those issues here as it will take us off topic.22
Persistence Question
Traditionally, Christians have held to a view called endurantism, or three-
dimensionalism. A person endures through time by living her life as a whole,
all at once, in the present moment. There is numerically one thing (the
person) that persists as a whole from one moment to the next. She does not
have parts at different times. She exists wholly in the present since, given
presentism, there are no nonpresent objects in existence.23
Endurantism is contrasted with a view called four-dimensionalism.24 Four-
dimensionalism is a doctrine about temporal parts, and is typically held in
conjunction with an eternalist ontology. On eternalism, all moments of time
exist. On four-dimensionalism, the entire space-time world can be cut up into
temporal parts—numerically distinct objects that exist at each instant of time.
A temporal part does not change its temporal location because its location is
eternally fixed in the space-time world. Unlike endurantism, objects do not
persist as a whole from one moment to the next. There is no numerical iden-
tity across time on four-dimensionalism. Instead, objects persist by having
temporal counterparts at later times.25
Divine Eternality
With these three questions laid out, it is worth recalling how classical Chris-
tians have answered them. Classical Christian theism has overwhelmingly
affirmed a relational theory of time, a presentist ontology of time, and an
endurantist theory of persistence through time. With these answers, we can
offer an insight into the traditional view of divine eternality. The traditional
claim is that God is timeless, which means that God exists without beginning,
without end, and without succession.26 Yet this claim needs to be unpacked
a bit.
Recall that, on the relational theory of time, time exists if and only if
change exists. Classical theists hold that God is strongly immutable in that
God cannot undergo any changes whatsoever, be they intrinsic or extrinsic.27
Alongside their commitment to the relational theory of time, classical theists
maintain that immutability entails divine timelessness.
Given their commitment to presentism and endurantism, classical theists
maintain that God lives as a whole, or all at once, in a timeless present that
lacks a before and after.28 Creatures endure in an ever fleeting present, with
moments of their lives fading away into the nonexistent past. Classical theism
maintains that God is not like that. God’s life never fades away into the past,
nor does God experience new moments in His life. Since God cannot change,
God exists in a present that lacks a before and after.
At this point, one might wonder how classical Christians came to believe
that God is timeless, especially since the Bible contains no hint of timeless
existence.29 Classical theism derives its understanding of God from the defi-
nition of God as a perfect being. What must be understood is that all human
persons have varying intuitions about what makes a being perfect. These intu-
itions have a significant impact on how one formulates one’s understanding
of God, and how one interprets scripture. Due to space limitations, we will
focus on one example of this from Anselm.
For Anselm, the present is the only moment of time that exists.30 Further,
creatures exist as a whole, or all at once, at each moment of their existence.
A human person exists as a whole through individual times.31 In light of
these assumptions, Anselm considers whether it is better for God to endure
through all times as a whole (i.e., divine temporality), or to exist as a whole
in a timeless present that lacks a before and after (i.e., divine timelessness).
If God endures through all times, God’s life can be conceptually divided up
into parts.32 What this means is that part of God’s life will be over and done
with as it fades away into the nonexistent past. Anselm regards such a claim
as inappropriate for the eternal God.33 Why?
Anselm, like all classical theists, is committed to the doctrine of divine
simplicity. The assumption here is that a perfect being must be an absolutely
simple being. We do not have the space to delve into all of the complex
nuances of this doctrine, so we must stick to a quick definition. Peter Lom-
bard offers the following definition of divine simplicity: “The same substance
alone is properly and truly simple in which there is no diversity or change or
multiplicity of parts, or accidents, or of any other forms.”34 This doctrine is
actually much stronger than most contemporary Christian philosophers and
theologians realize. It entails that God does not have any kind of metaphysical
complexity of any sort. A simple God does not have any intrinsic or extrinsic
properties because a simple God does not have any properties at all. What
is relevant for Anselm is the extreme extent to which God lacks any kind of
complexity or parts. Anselm explicitly denies that God can be divided into
either actual parts or conceptual parts.35 If God endured through time, His life
would be divided into conceptual parts such as before and after. That would
violate divine simplicity. So Anselm maintains that we should affirm divine
timelessness.
We deny divine simplicity, so we see no reason to follow Anselm to his
conclusion that God is timeless. Unlike the classical tradition, we do not
see divine simplicity as a possible perfection. We do not think that a perfect
being can be absolutely simple because we think that it is metaphysically
impossible for a simple being to have free will.36 We wish to affirm that God
freely creates and sustains the universe, and that God the Son freely became
incarnate for our salvation. So we are unable to affirm that God is simple,
and we thus see no motivation to follow Anselm to the conclusion that God
is timeless.
On our view, God is not timeless. God is eternal in that God exists without
beginning and without end, but God is not timeless because God experiences
succession in the divine life. In order to understand this, we must make it
clear how we answer the three questions about time. First, we differ over
how to answer the metaphysical question. However, we agree that if there is a
change, there is clearly time because there will be a before and after. Second,
we agree with the tradition that presentism is true. Third, we agree with the
tradition that endurantism is true.
So, what do we say about God’s eternality? We say that God exists as a
whole, or all at once, in the present moment of time. It is the same present
as ours. It would be better, though, to say that we exist in God’s present,
since God is actively sustaining us in existence from moment to moment. In
other words, we believe that God is an endurant being who persists through
time.37 We disagree with the traditional way of making this divine duration
timeless because we cannot understand how such a thing could possibly be
true.38 The God of the Bible is immutable in certain respects, but mutable in
others. God is immutable in that He is a necessarily existent, omnipotent,
omniscient, perfectly good, tripersonal, and perfectly free being. However,
this God changes through the exercise of His free will, and thus undergoes a
succession of moments. God was not always creating a universe, but freely
brought a universe into existence. This marked a new moment in the life of
God. Having brought the universe into existence, God freely continues to
maintain and interact with it in rather astonishing ways. He was not always
in a covenantal relationship with Abraham because Abraham did not always
exist. Yet at one point in time, God freely chose to enter a covenant with
Abraham, and He promised to bless the entire world through Abraham’s

offspring. Again, this marked a new moment in the life of God. One of the
most dramatic moments in history is the incarnation. The incarnation of God
the Son is a free and gracious act of the triune God. The universe had never
seen anything quite like it before. The incarnation marked a new moment in
the life of God as He sought to establish an everlasting relationship with His
creatures. This is a God who endures through time, and who seeks to ensure
that His redeemed creatures endure with him forever.
PERSONAL IDENTITY OVER TIME AND LIFE EVERLASTING
We believe that God and creatures are both endurant beings. Further, we
believe that God is going to grant creatures a life without end. Since God is
an endurant being who will never cease to exist, He can give us a life that
will never cease.
In order to get clear on the nature of personal identity over time as it relates
to life everlasting, we need to distinguish two related but distinct questions.
1. What is a human person?

2. What does personal identity consist in?
The first question is about the metaphysical make up of human persons. To

understand this question, consider your friend Sally. Sally is a human person,
but you want to know exactly what kind of thing Sally is. A physicalist is
going to say that a human person like Sally is a purely physical being. A
substance dualist will say that a person like Sally is an immaterial substance,
or a mind. The dualist will go on to say that what makes Sally a human per-
son is that she is an immaterial mind that is appropriately related to a human
body. This appropriate relationship is often called embodiment. (For more
on embodiment, see the chapter, “Physicalism and the Incarnation” in this
volume.)
The second question is about the necessary and sufficient conditions for
personal identity over time. Consider Sally again. Say that Sally is 30 years
old, and that you have known her since she was 5 years old. What makes
the Sally at age 5 the same person as the Sally at age 30? To be clear, this
is not an epistemic question. We are not asking, “How do I know that this
is the same Sally?” We are asking a metaphysical question. We want an
account that explains how this is the same Sally. To answer this question, we
need to distinguish several different accounts of personal identity over time.
There are two kinds of accounts that one can offer: complex and simple.39
On the complex view, there are substantive conditions for personal identity
over time. The complex view says that personal identity can be explained in
nonpersonal or subpersonal terms. What the complex theorist says is “that
a person persists over time is nothing more than some other facts which are
generally spelled out in either biological or psychological terms, or both.”40
A simple theorist will deny that these complex conditions capture personal
identity. On the simple view, there are no nontrivial or noncircular conditions
for personal identity over time. This is because personal identity is a primitive
notion that is not subject to a deeper analysis.
Consider again Sally. What makes the Sally at age 5 the same person as the
Sally at age 30? The simple theory says that personal identity is an ontologi-
cally primitive notion. So nothing makes the Sally at age 5 the same person
as the Sally at age 30. It simply is the same Sally. That is just what personal
identity is. To be clear, the simple view affirms a strict numerical identity.
This is the sort of numerical identity that endurantism wishes to affirm. The
complex view will disagree that personal identity is an ontologically primi-
tive notion. The complex view will say that personal identity is reducible to
some deeper biological or psychological relationships between objects or
mental states.
The proponent of the complex view has several options available to her
to unpack this. Due to space limitations, we shall restrict ourselves to dis-
cussing two popular accounts that physicalists about human persons often
adopt. The first account we shall examine is the combination of physicalism,
four-dimensionalism, and the psychological continuity account of personal
identity. The second view we shall examine is a combination of physicalism,
endurantism, and the biological account of personal identity.
Physicalism, Four-Dimensionalism, Psychological Continuity,

and Life Everlasting
Some complex theorists affirm both physicalism about human persons and
four-dimensionalism about personal identity over time. With regards to
personal identity over time, a four-dimensionalist will say that certain tem-
poral parts are united, or fused together, in interesting ways to form a space-
time worm. On one version of four-dimensionalism, called perdurantism, a
human person is a space-time worm. What unites the different temporal parts
together such that they constitute a particular space-time worm? This is where
the complex account of personal identity can come into play. On one version
of the complex theory, the temporal parts are psychologically continuous
with one another.
On this option for the complex view, one will say that what makes the
Sally-at-age-5 the same person as the Sally-at-age-30 is the fact that the later
Sally stands in some sort of psychological continuity with the earlier Sally.
There are many numerically distinct temporal parts that can be referred to
as Sally (one for each instant in fact!). The Sally-at-age-5 has later temporal
counterparts, and she is connected to these later temporal counterparts by
immanently causing them to have certain psychological states.41 What this
means is that the Sally-at-age-5 passes her psychological states on to the next
temporal counterpart, who in turn passes on her psychological states to the
next temporal counterpart, who in turn . . . and so on till we reach the tempo-
ral part at age 30. Each of these temporal parts, or person stages, is a numeri-
cally distinct Sally. Yet they are unified through this interesting psychological
relationship and immanent causation. According to the psychological view,
this interesting relationship is what personal identity over time consists in.
We do not like this physicalist view. Why? On four-dimensionalism, the
object that is fused together through psychological continuity forms a space-
time worm, but this space-time worm does not enjoy numerical identity. The
only objects that enjoy numerical identity are the temporal parts themselves.
Each temporal part is identical to itself. What the space-time worm enjoys is
a continuity relation cut in terms of psychological continuity.42 This continu-
ity relation is explicitly not numerical identity, and is sometimes referred to
as the gen-identity relation in order to get that fact across.43 As proponents of
four-dimensionalism often say, personal identity is not what matters. What
really matters is that we persist by having later temporal counterparts.44
We disagree with this four-dimensionalist stance because numerical per-
sonal identity matters quite dearly to us. We want to be the numerically same
people who enjoy life everlasting with God and all of redeemed humanity.
We believe that this four-dimensionalist account causes problems for our
hope in life everlasting.
Here is where problems arise for life everlasting. Each temporal part of a
human person space-time worm is called a person stage. Each person stage
is a thinking thing with free will, and each person stage of a space-time
worm is psychologically continuous with particular person stages that have
come temporally before and that come temporally after the person stage via
immanent causal relations. Consider the person stage of the apostle Peter that
exists at some time tx which is temporally prior to Christ’s return. This person
stage is thinking, “I sure look forward to Christ’s return.” Things get rather
unfortunate at this point for this particular person stage. The complex theorist
will say that this person stage is psychologically continuous with later person
stages that exist at Christ’s return. So, the Peter stage that exists at tx has later
temporal counterparts that are able to say, “Wow, I really am enjoying the
return of Christ.” However, that poor person stage back at time tx is saying,
“I sure look forward to Christ’s return.” This person stage never gets to enjoy
the return of Christ. We are of the opinion that this is not the sort of life ever-
lasting in which the apostle Peter has placed his hope. In fact, it seems to us
that this Peter stage has nothing to hope for since this Peter stage is eternally
located at time tx, and so can never experience the glorious return of Christ.
The four-dimensionalist might reply that this isn’t so bad. The person stage
at tx is eternally located at that time. The Peter that exists at that time never
ceases to exist given an eternalist ontology of time. Surely that is a kind of
everlasting life.
We concede that this is a kind of eternal life. On eternalism, there is no
state of affairs where God exists without the eternal space-time world.45 All
moments of time simply do exist, and are sustained by, God eternally. How-
ever, we maintain that this is not the sort of life everlasting that the Bible
speaks of. In Jesus’s sermon on the mount, He makes certain promises to
those who seek healing, forgiveness, mercy, righteousness, and peace. Those
who seek such blessings eventually will come to enjoy those very things at
the eschaton (Matt. 5:1–12). In the situation that the four-dimensionalist is
describing, none of this pans out. The Peter stage that exists at time tx is seek-
ing the kingdom of heaven, but it is a numerically distinct Peter stage who
enjoys the kingdom of heaven. That is not what Jesus has promised. Jesus
did not promise, “Blessed are those who seek righteousness, for your later
temporal counterparts who are numerically distinct from you shall find it.” To
be sure, the author of Matthew does not state Jesus’s underlying metaphysical
assumptions about personal identity over time. However, we maintain that
four-dimensionalism is a far cry from a natural reading of the text. Further,
four-dimensionalism seems to make Jesus’s promises on the sermon on the
mount unintelligible.
Much more could be said here, but we shall rest our case against the com-
bination of physicalism, four-dimensionalism, and the complex view. We
wish to turn our attention to the combination of physicalism and endurantism.
PHYSICALISM, ENDURANTISM, AND LIFE EVERLASTING
As unrepentant substance dualists, we fail to see the compatibility of physi-

calism with Christian doctrine. So far, we have argued that a physicalist can-
not account for life everlasting if she adopts four-dimensionalism and some
sort of psychological criterion of personal persistence over time. It seems to
us that endurantism is essential to the biblical notion of life everlasting. It is,
after all, the redeemed who receive life everlasting—but that notion requires
the numerical identity of the one who first walked in unrighteousness but
later is united into communion with God. In this section, we shall argue that
physicalism does not sit well with endurantism.
Someone who affirms endurantism will be able to hold either a simple or a
complex view. Most, but not all, physicalists affirm a complex view.46 Most,
but not all, dualists affirm the simple view.47 We are dualists who affirm the
simple view. We say that the persistence conditions of a human person are
different from the persistence conditions of her body. A person, the imma-
terial mind, just does persist with numerical identity over time. Her body,
however, persists in a complex way, and we do not think that this complex
way allows for strict numerical identity. It is to this problem that we now turn.
We focus our attention on physicalists who are endurantists and who
also affirm a complex view of personal persistence over time. This is often
referred to as the biological approach.48 This version of the complex view
says that what makes Sally at age 5 the same person as the Sally at age 30 is
that there is some sort of biological continuity between each Sally. A popular
version of this is called animalism. On animalism, a person is numerically
identical to a human organism.49
Animalism so defined still needs to answer some important questions in
order to shed light on this biological continuity. For instance, what makes
one human organism the same organism at later times? It cannot be (on pain
of raising the specter of mereological essentialism)50 the physical stuff that
makes up the organism since a human organism is constantly losing and
gaining parts over time through mitosis and other such events. The animalist
readily acknowledges this and looks elsewhere for an answer. The typical
answer is that there is a persistence of some sort of underlying biological pro-
cess called Life. Life is the “self-organizing biological event that maintains
the organism’s complex internal structure” amidst the perpetual need to “take
in new particles, reconfigure and assimilate them into its living fabric, and
expel those that are no longer useful to it.”51 On this view, what makes one
organism identical to an organism at a later time is the fact that each organism
is caught up in the same Life: so long as the same biological event of Life
continues, Sally the organism persists.52
If Sally at age 5 is caught up in a Life distinct from the Life of Sally at age
30, then clearly Sally’s endurance through time cannot be grounded in a Life
for there would in fact be numerically distinct Lives. Can animalism account
for Sally’s endurance through time? That, it seems, will depend upon whether
Life can endure, and that will depend upon the endurance of the relevant bio-
logical activities. However, as Brandon Rickabaugh has pointed out,
A life is an event composed of a collection of separate relation instances and

atomic parts, and as parts are replaced, so are the relation instances. Because
of this inherent process, a life at t1 is not numerically identical to a life at t2.
Although the relation types and part types may remain, the specific relation
tokens and part tokens are expelled and replaced. That is, the life at t2 might
have the same type of structure and same type of parts as the life at t1, although
the life at t2 does not have the numerically identical structure or the numerically
identical parts as the life at t1. The life just is this storm of parts and relation
instances. It isn’t as if there is some fundamental thing that has various sepa-
rable parts and relation instances. A life just is the storm, the collection of parts
and relations. The result is that a life does not endure.53
So, the event that is the Life of Sally at age 5 involves the same types of rela-
tions as the event that is the Life of Sally at age 30 (viz., the types of relations in
which organic materials stand) as well as the same types of parts (viz., organic
matter). But the particular bits of matter—that is, the part tokens—of the Life of
Sally at age 5 are not the same as the part tokens as those of the Life of Sally at
age 30, and the particular relation tokens of the former are not the same as those
of the latter. The upshot of this is that the Life of Sally at age 5 is not numeri-
cally identical with the Life of Sally at age 30 and so cannot be the ground of
Sally’s enduring through time. Given the inability of Life itself to endure, phys-
icalism’s best hope for compatibility with endurantism—animalism—fails.54
Once again, then, we do not see how physicalism can account for the numerical
identity of those who enjoy pre-resurrection experience of life everlasting and
those who enjoy post-resurrection experience of life everlasting.
CONCLUSION
The eternal God who willingly endures through time wishes to grant life ever-
lasting to the redeemed in Christ. We cannot see how this is compatible with
physicalist views of persons and have argued as much. Setting aside the dif-
ficulty of construing “the happy and holy communion which the faithful have
with God” in merely physical terms, it seems to us that a proper understand-
ing of life everlasting requires strict numerical identity of persons over time.
This is integral both to the core notion of being redeemed and to explaining
the essential continuity between one’s pre- and post-resurrection experiences
of life everlasting inherent within God’s program of redeeming creation. We
believe the substance dualist view of human persons makes good sense of
these notions. Whatever attractions there may be for “Christian physicalism,”
it seems to us that physicalism about persons cannot account for the biblical
notion of life everlasting.
NOTES
1. Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro, A Brief History of the Soul (Malden,
MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2011), 131–151.
2. Alvin Plantinga, “What is ‘Intervention’?” Theology and Science 6 (2008):
369–401.
3. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, in The Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, and

Irenaeus, eds. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, Ante-
Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 5.1.1. Ben C. Blackwell’s
Christosis: Pauline Soteriology in Light of Deification in Irenaeus and Cyril of Alex-
andria (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011) helpfully discusses this theme in some Greek
patristics.
4. John Wesley, “Sermon LXXXII.–Spiritual Worship,” in The Works of the
Reverend John Wesley, ed. John Emory, vol. 2 (New York: B. Waugh and T. Mason),
12; cf. Jerry Walls, Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2002), 51.
5. Richard Bauckham, “Eschatology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic
Theology, eds. John Webster, Kathryn Tanner, and Iain Torrance (Oxford: Oxford
6. Douglas Farrow, “Resurrection and Immortality,” Oxford Handbook of System-
atic Theology, 219–222.
7. See, e.g., N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis, MN:
Fortress Press, 2003), 463.
8. Hans Weber, “Hope and Creation,” in The End of the World and the Ends of
God, eds. John Polkinghorne and Michael Welker (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press
International, 2000), 193; cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Coming of God, trans. Margaret
Kohl (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 291f.
9. Edward Epsen, “Eternity is a Present, Time is Its Unwrapping,” The Heyth-
rop Journal 51 (2010): 417. Cf. Maximus the Confessor, Chapters on Knowledge,
1.68–70.
10. R.T. Mullins, The End of the Timeless God (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2016), xi–xii.
11. Miroslav Volf, “‘Enter into Joy!’ Sin, Death, and the Life of the World to
Come,” in The End of the World and the Ends of God, 270; cf. Brian Hebblethwaite,
Philosophical Theology and Christian Doctrine (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005),
111f.
12. Rory Fox, Time and Eternity in Mid-Thirteenth-Century Thought (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006), 134ff.
13. Fox, Time and Eternity, 226–227.
14. J. M. Child, The Geometrical Lectures of Isaac Barrow (London: The Open
Court Company, 1916), lecture I.
15. Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God and Other Writ-
ings, ed. Ezio Vailati (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 105. Cf.
William Uzgalis, ed., The Correspondence of Samuel Clarke and Anthony Collins,
1707–08 (Ontario: Broadview Press, 2011), 261.
16. Clarke, Demonstration, 122–123.
17. John Bigelow, “Presentism and Properties,” Philosophical Perspectives 10
(1996): 35. See also Dean Zimmerman, “The A-Theory of Time, Presentism, and
Open Theism,” in ed. Melville Y. Stewart, Science and Religion in Dialogue (Malden,
MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2010), 793.
18. Craig Bourne, A Future for Presentism (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006), 39–69.
19. Theodore Sider, Four-Dimensionalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

20. Mullins, The End of the Timeless God, 74–98.
21. Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1998), XI.20.
22. Dean Zimmerman, “Presentism and the Space-Time Manifold,” in The Oxford
Handbook of Philosophy of Time, ed. Craig Callender (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2011), 163–244. Bradley Monton, “Prolegomena to Any Future Physics-Based
Metaphysics,” in Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, vol. 3, ed. Jonathan
Kvanvig (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 142–165. John Polkinghorne,
“The Nature of Time,” in On Space and Time, eds. Alain Comes, Michael Heller,
Shahn Majid, Roger Penrose, John Polkinghorne, and Andrew Taylor (New York:
Cambridge Press, 2008), 278–283. Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin, The
Singular Universe the Reality of Time: A Proposal in Natural Philosophy (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
23. Michael Rea, “Four-Dimensionalism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Metaphys-
ics, ed. Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2003), 246–280.
24. Katherine Hawley, How Things Persist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
25. We are here discussing a version of four-dimensionalism called the stage the-
ory since it has the most ardent contemporary defenders in philosophers like Hawley
and Sider. Due to space constraints, we are ignoring another version called perdur-
ance. However, our arguments can easily be amended to count against perdurance.
26. R. Keith Loftin, “On the Metaphysics of Time and Divine Eternality,” Philoso-
phia Christi 17, no. 1 (2015): 177–187.
27. Peter Lombard, Sentences I, trans. Giulio Silano (Ontario: Pontifical Institute
of Mediaeval Studies, 2007), distinction XXXVII.7.
28. Boethius, “The Trinity is One God Not Three Gods,” in Theological Tractates,
trans. H. F. Stewart, E. K. Rand, and S. J. Tester (Suffolk: St. Edmundsbury Press,
1973), IV.
29. See James Barr, Biblical Words for Time (London: SCM Press, 1962); Henri
Blocher, “Yesterday, Today, Forever: Time, Times, Eternity in Biblical Perspec-
tive,” Tyndale Bulletin 52 (2001): 183–202; John Feinberg, No One Like Him: The
Doctrine of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001), 255–276; Antje Jackelen,
Time and Eternity: The Question of Time in Church, Science, and Theology (London:
Templeton Foundation Press, 2005), 61–120; G.E. Ladd, “Age, Ages,” in Evangeli-
cal Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books,
1984); Ted Peters, “Eschatology: Eternal Now or Cosmic Future?” Zygon 36 (2001):
349–356.
30. Anselm, Proslogion, in Monologion and Proslogion, trans. Thomas Williams
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995), XXII. Cf. Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams, Anselm
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 102.
31. Anselm, Monologion, XXI.
32. See Robert Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1689 (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2011), 374–400.
33. Anselm, Monologion, XXI–XXIV. Cf. Proslogion, XIX–XXII.
34. Lombard, Sentences I, Dist. VIII.3.

35. Anselm, Proslogion, XVIII. Cf. Cur Deus Homo, VII.
36. R. T. Mullins, “Simply Impossible: A Case Against Divine Simplicity,” Jour-
nal of Reformed Theology 7 (2013): 181–203.
37. R. T. Mullins, “Divine Temporality, the Trinity, and the Charge of Arianism,”
Journal of Analytic Theology 4 (2016): 267–290.
38. R. T. Mullins, The End of the Timeless God.
39. George Gasser and Matthias Stefan, eds., Personal Identity: Complex or
Simple? (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
40. George Gasser and Matthias Stefan, “Introduction,” in Personal Identity, 3.
41. David B. Hershenov, “Four-Dimensional Animalism,” in Animalism: New
Essays on Persons, Animals, and Identity, eds. Stephan Blatti and Paul F. Snowdon
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 211–212.
42. Of course, if everything is self-identical, there is a trivial sense in which the
worm may have numerical identity. Anything with either more, or less, or different
temporal parts would be distinct from that worm. Anything with neither more, nor less,
nor different temporal parts would be the same. What is in view, however, is a four-
dimensionalism that is (typically) committed to unrestricted composition, on which
view any temporal parts whatsoever can make up a worm. The gen-identity relation is
a continuity relation that attempts to pick out a particular group of temporal parts.
43. Peter van Inwagen, “What Do We Refer to When We Say ‘I’?” in The Black-
well Guide to Metaphysics, ed. Richard M. Gale (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd,
2002), 177.
44. Eric Steinhart, “The Revision Theory of Resurrection,” Religious Studies 44
(2008): 66–67.
45. Katherin Rogers, “Anselm on Eternity as the Fifth Dimension,” The Saint
Anselm Journal 32 (2006): 3.
46. The physicalist Trenton Merricks affirms the simple view. See his, “There are
No Criteria of Identity Over Time,” Noûs 32 (1998): 106–124.
47. It may be that John Locke is a dualist who affirms the complex view. See E. J.
Lowe, More Kinds of Being, 2nd ed. (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009), 104–116.
48. Andrew M. Bailey, “Animalism,” Philosophy Compass 10 (2015): 868.
49. Eric T. Olson, What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 24.
50. Some of the difficulties facing such a position are laid out in Trenton Merricks,
“Composition as Identity, Mereological Essentialism, and Counterpart Theory,” Aus-
tralasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (1999): 192–195.
51. Olson, What Are We? 28.
52. Olson, 29.
53. Brandon Rickabaugh, 9ff)”An Enduring Problem for Animalism,” presented at
the Perspectives on the First-Person Pronoun “I”: Looking at Metaphysics, Linguis-
tics and Neuroscience, at Durham University (Durham, England) May 16 to May 18,
2014. Available online at www.brandonrickabaugh.com.
54. As Rickabaugh goes on to show, taking a Life to be a temporally extended
event only leads to further problems (9ff).
Anselm. Monologion and Proslogion. Translated by Thomas Williams. Indianapolis:

Hackett, 1995.
Augustine. Confessions. Translated by Henry Chadwick. New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1998.
Barr, James. Biblical Words for Time. London: SCM Press, 1962.
Blatti, Stephan, and Paul F. Snowdon, eds. Animalism: New Essays on Persons, Ani-
mals, and Identity. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Callender, Craig, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time. Oxford, UK:
Merricks, Trenton. “Composition as Identity, Mereological Essentialism, and Coun-
terpart Theory.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (1999): 192–195.
Mullins, R.T. The End of the Timeless God. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press,
2016.
Olson, Eric T. What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology. New York: Oxford
Pasnau, Robert. Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1689. Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press, 2011.
Walls, Jerry. Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy. New York: Oxford University Press,
2002.
Chapter 6
Holy Saturday and Christian

Theological Anthropology
Jason McMartin
I contend that while the Christian physicalist may be able to provide meta-
physically possible accounts of the resurrection of Jesus, theologically
adequate models are more difficult to come by. In particular, I argue that
physicalist accounts of the intermediate state experienced by the incarnate
Christ on Holy Saturday have difficulty aligning with various theological
criteria arising from orthodox Christology and soteriology. After outlining
these theological principles, I survey three models that physicalists have
proposed for understanding postmortem existence: gappy existence, alternate
temporality, and immediate resurrection. After explaining these basic mod-
els and considering how they might understand Jesus’s death, resurrection,
and intermediate state, I will consider how well these models align with the
theological principles I have described. In the final section, I consider meth-
odological issues pertaining to the entire project.
Christian philosophers have tended to focus on modal issues and on
metaphysical models for understanding resurrection. Some have questioned
whether physicalists will be able to develop a metaphysically satisfactory
story of resurrection or of the intermediate state.1 In general, Christian physi-
calists have recognized the challenge to their positions from the resurrection.
Some of these also consider how to understand the intermediate state from the
standpoint of physicalism. Receiving comparatively little attention, however,
has been Christ’s death and resurrection. He, too, went through an intermedi-
ate state: Holy Saturday in between Good Friday and Easter.
In what follows, I consider how three physicalist models of resurrection
would explain the intermediate state of Jesus.2 I won’t consider these models
on their own merits, and they may not be equally valid answers to the question
at hand. Supposing that metaphysical difficulties such as the preservation of
personal identity can be overcome, I intend to explore the extension of these
117
118 Jason McMartin
physicalist stories into Christ’s intermediate state and their ability to encom-
pass the relevant theological principles. To what extent do physicalist models
of resurrection provide a plausible explanation of the biblical evidence and of
theological inferences therefrom? Which model of the metaphysics of human
personhood best explains the theological data? As we add additional evidence
from Scripture and theology, how well do physicalist models fare? I suggest
new weaknesses emerge in physicalist accounts of resurrection when we
attempt to explain the theological data from Christ’s intermediate state. Con-
sidering the biblical data concerning Christ’s intermediate state contributes to
the construction of Christian theological anthropology.
This project may be thought of as an extension of that undertaken by John
Cooper in Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting.3 He contends that certain physi-
calist theories of gappy existence and immediate resurrection are ruled out
by Christ’s intermediate state. I’ll add the theory of alternate temporality and
include discussion of a version of immediate resurrection developed since the
time of Cooper’s writing (fissioning).
I will use “physicalism” to designate the view that a human person can-
not exist without a body. The term is contentious, and as I am using it here,
likely includes several other views that are not always labeled as physicalist
positions. Baker, for instance, uses the term “materialist” and distinguishes
between type I and type II materialists.4 Type I materialists insist that we can-
not exist without the particular organic bodies we have. Baker’s own type II
materialism holds only that we cannot exist without some body or other, since
our mental states depend on that body. We can, for example, exist with non-
organic, or with partially organic bodies. As I use the term, physicalism can
include both of these forms of materialism. It probably then includes consti-
tutionalists (Corcoran, Baker), four-dimensionalists (Hudson), nonreductive
physicalists (Murphy), and animalists (van Inwagen, Merricks). It may also
include certain emergentists, such as O’Connor.
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE AND THE

THEOLOGY OF HOLY SATURDAY
Various strands of Christian theology have affirmed an intermediate state:

a period of time between the death of an individual human person and the
future general resurrection. Certain biblical passages suggest life after death
and prior to the resurrection of the body. Some theologians deny such a state,
perhaps by affirming an extinction-recreation scenario or by postulating an
immediate resurrection. With the possible exception of immediate resurrec-
tion views, the intermediate state is usually thought of as being an atypical
period of human existence. If, for example, Paul refers to an intermediate
Holy Saturday and Christian Theological Anthropology 119
state in 2 Corinthians 5, then his metaphor of being unclothed suggests an

unnatural human state.
Jesus, too, experienced an intermediate state between his death on Good
Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. I will avoid becoming entan-
gled in the exegetically and theologically difficult debates concerning what
Christ was doing on Holy Saturday. I will instead focus on the status of his
incarnation and its theological implications on this intervening day, using
some minimal theological assertions concerning the work of his passion.
The principal concern of this chapter will be the status of the human nature
of Christ during the passion. Even apart from making a judgment about the
theological significance of Holy Saturday, the death, and resurrection, the
intervening time between them will be theologically significant.
One of the primary theological discussions surrounding Holy Saturday
concerns the affirmation of the Apostle’s Creed that Christ “descended to
hell” following burial and prior to resurrection. Several of the positions con-
cerning a supposed descent on Holy Saturday depend quite heavily on the
full humanity of Christ. One model suggests that Christ descended to hell on
Holy Saturday to provide a full satisfaction of God’s wrath and to experience
complete torment and abandonment in the place of the rest of humanity.5
Heppe, for example, states that “like all human souls which separate from
their bodies, even Christ’s soul had to descend into Hades, because his whole
divine human person was punished with real death in order that sin might be
atoned for and the covenant of grace consummated.”6 This model of Holy
Saturday and the descent into hell requires the full humanity of Christ during
his intermediate state. This view also fits with the idea that humans undergo
an intermediate state as part of punishment for sin, just as they die resulting
from punishment for sin.
THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES
Before evaluating physicalist alternatives for understanding Holy Saturday, I

will explain a handful of theological principles that will be frequently used as
criteria for the discussion. Several theological affirmations govern our under-
standing of Christ’s incarnation and its connection to our human nature, knit-
ting soteriology, Christology, and theological anthropology closely together.
In order to redeem us fully, Christ had to be fully human and fully divine.
Further, Christ shows us what it is to be fully human as intended by God.
Though potentially revisable, these criteria cohere and changes will have far-
reaching impact among connected doctrinal affirmations. Alternate accounts
of Christ’s humanity will have different theological implications.
First, the triune God cannot cease existing. I’ll designate this as
120 Jason McMartin
Endless Existence (EE): God exists unendlessly.
Therefore, whatever may happen in the activities of the incarnate Christ, the
second person of the Trinity can’t cease existing. As we’ll see, some physi-
calist accounts of resurrection allow for nonexistence of the human person
between the time of death and future resurrection. Perhaps that is possible for
human persons, but it is not possible for God.
Second, the Chalcedonian consensus affirms that Christ is one person in
two natures, fully divine and fully human, without confusion, without change,
without division, and without separation. In all things, he is like us (sin only
excepted).
We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach people to con-
fess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead
and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational]
soul and body; consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the
Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things
like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to
the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the
Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same
Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, incon-
fusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being
by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature
being preserved, and concurring in one Person (prosopon) and one Subsistence
(hypostasis), not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son,
and only begotten God (μονογενῆ Θεόν), the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as
the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed
down to us. (Schaff 1919)
Several theologians in recent decades have insisted that human nature ought
to be understood by means of Christology, since “only Jesus Christ reveals
who and what human persons truly are.”7 This Christological approach to
anthropology “has become so pervasive that theologians can speak of a broad
consensus regarding the centrality of Jesus Christ in any attempt to under-
stand the nature of human persons.”8 Though theologians disagree concern-
ing the correct way to employ Christology in understanding humanity, Jesus
links our inquiries into Christology and theological anthropology. Chalcedon
implies that in having human nature fully, Christ is like us. This yields the
principle of the theandric union:
Theandric Union (TU): In the Incarnation, Jesus Christ is one person uniting
two natures, human and divine.
We share the same human nature as Christ; we are consubstantial. “If Christ
is consubstantial with us with respect to his human nature, then Christ’s
human nature is no different from our human nature in its composition.”9 For
this reason, we may inquire concerning the implication the Incarnation has
for understanding human constitution and vice versa.
Christ’s ascension implies that his human nature, including his embodi-
ment, continues and will continue until his return (Acts 1:11). It would seem
that, once incarnate, the second person of the Trinity remains incarnate there-
after. The phrase “without division” would appear to imply the two natures are
united and will not be separated. Although I will not develop it here, I believe
that the an/enhypostasis distinction used to describe the theology of the fifth
council would also imply that the incarnation is inseparable. Once the human
nature has been hypostatized, it continues to be impersoned by the logos.
Third, Christ’s saving work is closely connected to the nature of Christ’s
person as expressed in the theandric union principle. It is the work that Christ
does in virtue of the person that he is. Here we will focus on the soteriologi-
cal significance of his full humanity, which opens up the salvific possibility
that we may enter into our full humanity in the way we were intended to do.
Jesus had to be fully human in order to redeem the entirety of the human
person, since that which is not assumed is not healed. Jesus had to endure
the consequences of sin, particularly death, as a human in order to effect our
salvation. We find our salvation by identifying with him in our deaths and res-
urrections. Yet we must also distinguish between components of his suffering
that function as merely an example for us in our suffering (1 Peter 2:21) and
those aspects of suffering we also endure. Most aspects of his passion will
not find exact equivalent in our experience. With regard to death, most all
humans will die physically, and so Jesus conquers eternal death for us (rather
than physical death). In the words of theologians, his substitution is inclusive
with regard to physical death (he dies physically and so do we), but exclusive
with regard to eternal death and alienation from God (he bears the ultimate
consequences of sin so that we don’t have to).10 Perhaps it is also the case that
his intermediate state is an instance of what we also will experience in terms
of the consequences of sin. Nevertheless, his resurrection is the pattern for
ours. This seems to be the meaning of Paul’s claim that Jesus’s resurrection
is the first fruit, the first and best part of the crop that is the promise of the
remainder of the crop to come. This is summed up as:
Soteriological Pattern (SP): Christ is the soteriological pattern for our death and
resurrection.
As signified by the sacraments and by the entirety of Christian existence,

significant points of continuity may be found between Christ’s life, death, and
resurrection and our own.
122 Jason McMartin
Finally, postmortem existence will have aspects of both continuity and

discontinuity with our terrestrial lives. For example, in the resurrection
appearances, Christ was both recognizable to the disciples and bore the
marks of his suffering, but could also appear in a locked room. The clothing
metaphor that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 15:53–54 suggests that immortality
is added to us, rather than getting rid of our earthly mortality. Among various
points of continuity, perhaps least controversial would be that we continue to
be human in postmortem existence. This is the principle of anthropological
continuity:
Anthropological Continuity (C): Essential properties of human nature endure in

postmortem existence.
At the same time, many things will be different in our postmortem existence.
In continuity with our earthly lives, we are meant to be embodied beings.
That means that if we endure an intermediate state, as I believe we do, it is
not comfortable or “natural” for us (2 Cor. 5). Nonessential facets of human
life may be and will likely be quite different on the other side of the grave.
This yields a discontinuity principle:
Anthropological Discontinuity (D): In postmortem existence, many nonessen-

tial features of human nature will be unlike terrestrial existence.
It is not easy to sort out where continuity ends and discontinuity begins. For
example, issues of continuity and discontinuity raise the question concerning
the proper theological and biblical way of understanding death. In what ways
does death bring an end to usual human existence and in what ways does it
provide continuity with usual human existence? I consider the meaning of
death in what follows.
THREE THEORIES
I turn now to a description of the three kinds of physicalist theories that

have been suggested as explanations for postmortem existence. One version
of the third of these has been developed most thoroughly and has received
considerable attention. Since these models primarily seek to explain the
resurrection, they differ concerning the extent to which they incorporate
space for an intermediate state. In this section, I will first explain each
physicalist model for understanding resurrection. Then I will apply it to
Christ’s resurrection. Finally, I will consider theological implications of
the physicalist story.
Gappy Existence
One alternative for physicalist resurrection is continued existence with tem-
poral gaps. The main idea on this view is that while I cease to exist at my
death, I exist once again at the general resurrection from the dead. That is, in
the span of time between my death and the future general resurrection, I do
not exist, and death means nonexistence.
Physicalists holding this theory have been primarily concerned to show
that it is metaphysically possible to preserve continuity of personal identity
when crossing a spatiotemporal gap, since critics have frequently urged that
such gaps would make principled differentiation between a resurrected self
and a replica of myself impossible. For varying reasons, physicalists have
affirmed that such gaps are possible and do not undermine personal identity.11
Corcoran offers a story for how this might work. He explains, “if God causes
that body to exist once, why couldn’t God cause it to exist a second time? . . .
What makes the first stage of the post-gap body a different stage of the same
body that perished is that God makes it so.”12 Later he appears to imply that
gappy existence is compatible with belief in an intermediate state, though
apparently does not comport well with that position.
Postulation of gappy existence is meant as a way of avoiding the constraint
of causal continuity or of an immanent causal connection. (I sense that this
model is not overly popular because of these avoidances, which appear to
result in some absurd or implausible outcomes.)
Physicalists differ concerning how they propose resumption of life (i.e.,
resurrection) occurs on the far side of the gap according to their theories of
the relationship of mental states to bodies. For nonreductive physicalists, God
may reconstitute a suitable collection of material particles into a structure that
will subvene the same mental states the deceased had during life, giving rise
to the same person. Similarly, constitutionalists allow that God would reas-
semble material stuff to reconstitute me, and so forth.
Van Inwagen’s simulacrum view differs in salient ways from other physi-
calist accounts on this point.13 As an animalist, van Inwagen affirms that a
human person is a biological organism (an animal) composed of matter that
has an internal structure and that has been caught up in a life. Death removes
the event that provides the requisite structure of the material parts; decom-
position results in the progressive diminishment of relations between the
material parts that composed the structure that was my life. Van Inwagen’s
suggested account of resurrection is that, at death, God creates a simulacrum
of the body of the deceased, which he leaves in place of the original body.
The original is preserved elsewhere with its proper structure, allowing the
material parts of the resurrected body to stand in the correct causal structure
to one another and therefore be reconstituted later as the same life.
124 Jason McMartin
Given this physicalist story of the resurrection, how should we understand

Holy Saturday? First, given EE, the second person of the Trinity does not
cease existing on Holy Saturday. (I am not even sure where to go if someone
were to deny this.) The divine nature of the incarnate Christ does not cease
existing. Presumably, the incarnate Christ continues to have conscious expe-
riences on Holy Saturday independent of the status of his body.14
Physicalists may not worry about the temporal gap since the body in the
tomb may be plausibly revivified. The material stuff may be caused by God
to subvene human conscious states, or to constitute a human person, or to be
caught up in the same life.
However, if Holy Saturday is a temporal gap, then it would seem that
Christ’s human nature does cease existing, since, for the physicalist, to be
human is to have a body. Some physicalists may wish to affirm that Christ
still had a human nature on Holy Saturday, despite the dead body in the tomb.
For example, according to Olson’s construal of animalism, death means a life
that cannot be restarted. Consider: “As for identity over time, I am inclined to
believe that an organism persists if and only if its life continues. This has the
surprising consequence that an organism ceases to exist when the event that
maintains its internal structure stops and cannot be restarted—that is, when
the organism dies.”15 It would follow that no organism is dead whose life can
be restarted. Either Christ’s human life was restartable or it wasn’t. Whether
a life is restartable presumably incorporates various medical criteria. Two pri-
mary components are clinical death and brain death. Suppose you thought the
human life of Jesus restarted on Sunday, then the incarnate Christ still has a
human nature on Saturday. Although it avoids the problem of a disincarnated
Christ, this response wreaks havoc on our usual understanding of death and
resurrection. On this view, Christ was never dead in Olson’s sense considered
here, though could perhaps have been said to be dead in a colloquial sense.
This would imply that Christ was not clinically dead from the time of being
taken from the cross until Sunday. Technically, then, he is revived and not
resurrected. Theologically and empirically, it is implausible to suppose that
Christ did not really die.
If, on the other hand, Christ was dead and ceased to have a human nature,
then, given EE, Christ is no longer incarnate on Holy Saturday and no longer
human. This would appear to contradict the “without separation” clause of
Chalcedon and the enhypostasis of the second person as considered in the fifth
council, hence contravening TU. The unity of the person would be in doubt.
Setting that aside, how would we understand his resurrection on Sunday?
Perhaps the resurrection would best be understood as a second incarnation,
and the uniqueness and significance of Christmas would be called into ques-
tion.16 Unlike the first incarnation, the logos would assume a human nature
in the form of the dead body in the tomb. In what way would it continue the
particular instance of the human nature present in the first incarnation? This is
a problem that plagues this view in general: what accounts for the continuity
across temporal gaps? Since it is the body in the tomb that is incarnated by
the logos, perhaps the continuity can be explained by the material stuff being
the same body.
In this scenario, the resurrection is more akin to an incarnation, an incarna-
tion into decaying body. Not very many thinkers want to affirm that the very
same physical stuff must be employed in the resurrection. For most of us, our
original matter will not be available to us. If Christ’s resurrection is relevantly
similar to human resurrection, then dualism would appear to be implied for
the rest of humanity. Otherwise, Christ’s resurrection appears to have few
similarities to our resurrection, contravening SP.
Additionally, in tension with SP and C, Jesus is not human (or not fully
human) on Holy Saturday. Theologically, then, he does not bear the conse-
quence of sin in death as a human, but simply avoids it. Rather than endure
death or the intermediate state, he claims divine prerogative for avoiding
them.
Alternate Temporality
A second set of physicalist models for resurrection deny or question the
existence of the intermediate state by suggesting that it is mistaken to think
of a period between death and resurrection. Appealing to God’s timelessness,
proponents of this view suggest that, at death, a person enters into a timeless
state.
According to the eternalist, it would quite possibly mean experiencing time as

God does through the dissolution of the fragmentariness of human existence and
an awakening to an experience of life in undivided wholeness. When one dies,
perhaps it is not merely the totality of that life, but the whole of history which
appears to that person in undivided wholeness. Consequently, to those taken
up into the divine eternity, the general resurrection would be just as present as
the moment of their death. For them, there would be no interim period before
the general resurrection; rather, to die is to be present to the general resurrec-
tion, and thus to be ready for participation in resurrected life. Accordingly there
would be no need to posit an intermediate state.17
Joel Green admits that if we define the intermediate state as the period of ter-
restrial time that intervenes between death and future resurrection, then it is
entailed that Luke 16:19–31 supports its existence. He explains:
[A]s we have seen, Luke 16:19–31 self-evidently refers to an intermediate

state insofar as “intermediate” refers to the linear marking of time from the
126 Jason McMartin
perspective of the rich man’s brothers still alive in this world. Whether the rich
man and Lazarus experience their existence beyond death as “intermediate” is
an altogether different question, however.18
It is this assumption that Green wishes to call into question, and he rightly
notes that the passage of time for the earth-bound is not the main issue.
Whether Luke’s parable envisions an intermediate state depends on how one

defines “state,” whether in temporal or spatial terms, or both. If one presumes
time as experienced from an earthly point of view, then it makes sense to speak
of an intermediate state—that is a period that passes between the death of the
individual and the consummation of all things, as we, Luke’s readers experience
time. What is not obvious is that Lazarus (for example) experiences the afterlife
in this parable as a kind of waiting room between death and final Judgment.19
On the alternate temporality view, no disembodied state is required to make

sense of the intermediate state, thus providing room for physicalist construals
of postmortem existence. Glenn Peoples suggests that divine timelessness
also enables the physicalist to affirm that the death of Jesus does not affect the
timeless existence of the Son of God (though without linking this explicitly
to the resurrection).20
As an explanation of postmortem existence, this model does not appear to
be common. It does not provide an explanation for bodily continuity, only for
why an intermediate state is not needed, which means one of the other two
models will likely still be needed. Any duration of time for the deceased prior
to the final judgment, even in an alternate temporality, would seem to require
either a gap in existence or a physicalist explanation of bodily continuity. The
alternate temporality model seems most fruitfully combined with the immedi-
ate resurrection model to be considered next.
Whatever its merits for understanding human postmortem survival, the
alternate temporality thesis would appear to have less value for explicating
Jesus’s intermediate state. According to the model, the incarnate logos would
cease experiencing terrestrial time on Friday, and begin experiencing it again
on Easter Sunday. Neither EE nor TU need be contravened. It is less clear that
this view can work well with SP and C. Some differences between Jesus’s
resurrection and ours are to be expected. Yet, Jesus’s resurrection can’t be a
shift to the future general resurrection, since he experiences normal terrestrial
time from Easter onwards. The model may postulate that, upon death, Jesus
entered temporal simultaneity with both his resurrection and the future gen-
eral resurrection. Following his resurrection, he experienced typical terres-
trial time. Alternatively, Christ, entered temporal simultaneity at death, and
remained in this following resurrection, yet while having typical time-bound
interaction with his disciples in the resurrection appearances. I confess dif-

ficulty in making sense of these alternatives.
I question whether this view provides an altogether satisfactory account
of the person after death. Our temporality comprises a key component of our
experience. Can we make sense of wholly material entities that are nontem-
poral? Supposing we are able, postulation of a timeless postmortem existence
would appear to be ad hoc. Physicalism and C seek to preserve significant
continuity with present human experience, and temporality is an inescapable
feature of our experience.
In the end, it doesn’t appear that this view can provide a useful explanation
of the status of the incarnate Christ on Holy Saturday. Likely this view col-
lapses into the next model to be considered.
Immediate Resurrection
Physicalists frequently propose an immediate resurrection following death in
order to maintain the continuance of the body and hence of the person. Some
physicalists even allow for an intermediate state, in addition to an immediate
resurrection. Lynne Rudder Baker for example explains:
I know of no reason—Biblical or philosophical—to suppose that the intermedi-

ate state must be a disembodied state. For all we know, persons in the inter-
mediate state (assuming that there is one) are constituted by intermediate-state
bodies. As we saw, when one is resurrected, one has a “spiritual,” or “glorified,”
or “imperishable” body. If God can so transform or replace our bodies once, he
can do it twice.21
Baker contends that the intermediate state can be compatible with a physical-
ist account of the person if two resurrections are postulated. The first resur-
rection is from the earthly body to the intermediate body, and the second
is from the intermediate body to the glorified body. This hypothesis makes
physicalism consistent with an intermediate state, though some have ques-
tioned the motivation for postulating this second resurrection. For example,
in considering the compatibility of animalism with purgatory, David Hershe-
nov opines, “if you will be in Purgatory as a material being, then it is hard
to envision what would be the point of the later resurrection promised upon
Jesus’ return.”22 Perhaps the key motivation should be SP: our bodies experi-
ence two resurrections because according to the model, Christ’s did. In any
case, this model postulates that all postmortem existence is embodied in one
way or another.
Zimmerman’s fissioning model has risen to prominence among models
of resurrection.23 On this view, at death, each of my individual particles
128 Jason McMartin
(or simples, in Corcoran’s language) fissions, creating two complete bodies,

both of which are immanently causally connected to my life. One of these
fissioned collections of material stuff is the dead body that is buried in the
ground. The other fissioned collection is preserved by God in a different time
and place. (I will continue to use the term fissioning, even though in the more
recent development, Zimmerman calls the process budding.) The second
fission product continues the life of the premortem person. The fissioning
view avoids a gappy existence view (or at least one without immanent causal
connections) and could be used to support the idea of an immediate resur-
rection. As Baker suggests, immediate resurrection may be combined with
an intermediate state, involving two resurrections.24 Likewise, the fissioning
view may be used to postulate the mechanism of at least the first resurrection,
and perhaps of the second also.
How should we think of the fissioning theory in relationship to Christ’s
resurrection? According to Zimmerman’s fissioning account, Jesus could
have remained fully human by having a body after his death. At death, Jesus
would have fissioned, leaving his original body to be taken from the cross and
then buried in the ground. Jesus continues to be fully human and embodied
on Holy Saturday, whatever activities in which he may have been engaged.
There are now two bodies, or at least, two collections of matter. The second
of these belongs to the living Christ. The first of these is carried down from
the cross, prepared, and buried in the tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea.
An initial concern for the story thus far, is that the resurrection of Christ is
marked by an empty tomb. The women find the tomb empty (Luke 24:2–3).
So what happens to the first body? Perhaps Jesus’s original body disappears
by being stolen. More promisingly for the model, God could have removed
the first fissioned body, perhaps by dissipating it rapidly once the tomb was
sealed. These scenarios generate other problems, such as attributing deceit to
God (as has been pressed against van Inwagen’s account) or generating mas-
sive confusion to people who saw both the resurrected Lord and the stolen
body (that could conceivably be in the same room!). The theory also has the
potentially incongruous consequence that, contrary to the creed, Jesus was
not buried.
Another route for the physicalist would be to hypothesize that Jesus
returned from his second, fissioned body to his original body. In order to
preserve the immanent causal connection among the particles composing
Christ’s body, we might postulate a new process: fusioning. The fissioned,
closest continuer person of Christ fused with the body in the tomb. Unlike
the dissipation model, the fusion model holds that the body of the post-
resurrected Christ was prepared by his disciples and buried.
Neither fusion nor dissipation appear to contravene TU, but they comport
less well with SP and C. For each of these, the theologically significant event
for humans happened immediately upon Jesus’s death, prior to his burial, and
not on Easter. Given dissipation, the resurrection happened at the moment of
Jesus’s death; Easter only reveals this state of affairs. On the fusion model,
there are two kinds of resurrection: fissioning and fusioning. Christ experi-
enced fusion-resurrection on Easter. Fission-resurrection provides the pattern
for most of humanity, since it is the way humans will survive their deaths and
most humans won’t be returned to the corpses of their bodies. Should we then
change our liturgical orientation to Good Friday and Easter? According to
these two versions of the immediate resurrection model, the hope-conferring
event of the Christian faith happens at Jesus’s death and is only marked by the
later discovery of the empty tomb and in the post-resurrection appearances.
The resulting flattened narrative alters the Christian narrative of identification
with Christ’s soteriological pattern.
Both the dissipation and fusion models affect our account of postmortem
bodily continuity as well. When Jesus appears to the disciples after the res-
urrection, he provides them with bodily evidence for his identity. “See my
hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not
have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). According to the
fusion model, this statement by Jesus obscures a counterintuitive truth: the
body he presents to them both is and isn’t the body taken from the cross and
the body from the tomb. On the dissipation model, the post-resurrection body
was not taken from the cross and buried. On both, the original body of Jesus
did not accompany Christ during the events of Holy Saturday as did the sec-
ond fissioned body. This means that the post-Easter resurrected human nature
of Jesus either didn’t endure death by going through Holy Saturday or both
did and didn’t as a fusion of the two bodies. Similar problems may plague
dualist conceptions of bodily continuity in resurrection, but the challenges of
physicalist models appear to be intensified in relation to the unique features
of Christ’s resurrection.
EVALUATING COMPETING EXPLANATIONS
In the previous section, I explored theological implications of varying physi-

calist models of Christ’s intermediate state. Although extensive comparison
with dualist models would be beyond the scope of this chapter, I raise, in this
section, three areas for such an evaluation.
First, all models of postmortem existence intersect with questions concern-
ing the nature of death. Although Scripture views death as a defeated foe, it
is nonetheless characterized in an overwhelmingly negative fashion. Death is
a curse, a punishment, and an enemy. Physicalists have pressed the objection
that dualism fails to provide a compelling reason for a negative evaluation
130 Jason McMartin
of death. For example, Merricks explains that, “it is not clear that the dualist
can agree that death is bad. When the Christian dies, according to the dual-
ist, he or she goes immediately to a much better place . . . death, it would
seem, is even better than quitting your job and moving to a beachfront villa in
Hawaii . . . if dualism is true, it is hard to see how death is an enemy.”25
It is true that some dualists have viewed immediate postmortem existence as
a state of blessedness, following the seeming implication of St. Paul in Phi-
lippians 1:23. On the other hand, Merricks’s objection would seem to apply
equally to physicalist accounts of resurrection. For each physicalist theory
considered here, after closing my eyes in death one moment, I would awake
the next moment to something better than a vacation.26 Perhaps the only ill
effect I might experience would be something like jet lag and a general dis-
orientation at having awoken elsewhere or elsewhen.27
Theologians have commonly defined death as separation rather than as
extinction in order to preserve the similarity between physical death and
eternal death. For example, Berkhof, after surveying the biblical evidence,
states the following:
In view of all this it may be said that, according to Scripture, physical death
is a termination of physical life by the separation of body and soul. It is never
an annihilation . . . Death is not a cessation of existence, but a severance of
the natural relations of life. Life and death are not opposed to each other as
existence and non-existence, but are opposites only as different modes of
existence . . . Death means a break in the natural relations of life.28
If disembodiment is unnatural, the negative facets of death can be

encompassed by a dualist reading of the intermediate state. The goods of
embodiment are lost during the intermediate state.29 Death is a state of
existence to be endured and can be gratefully set aside in the resurrection.
Further, this understanding allows for a robust facet of the discontinuity
(D) between terrestrial and postmortem existence not available to the
physicalist.
Second, Christian dualists and physicalists should make the manner of
their incorporation of the biblical material explicit. It is common to claim
that resurrection and the afterlife are mysterious and that we ought not expect
to gain a detailed understanding concerning how it works. Accordingly, a
physicalist may deny the need to account for all of the details brought into
consideration above. While it is certainly true that we ought not expect all of
our questions to be answered, we also don’t want to punt to mystery on first
down! It is not at all clear when we have an epistemological mystery before
us (something we don’t know) or a theological mystery (something we can’t
know apart from revelation, or perhaps at all). We should be hesitant about

claiming theological mystery too early.
Some have claimed that the biblical texts provide an ambiguous or incon-
sistent picture of resurrection and the state of life after death and hence prove
of little use in developing theories of human constitution. Noting apparent
contradictions among the texts describing Jesus’s post-resurrection appear-
ances, Nancey Murphy contends that
the church, in canonizing a collection of documents with genuinely inconsistent

accounts of the resurrected body, is telling us something very important about
resurrection—namely, that the language of the present aeon is incapable of
describing a resurrected body. No ordinary description is possible. Rather, we
must be content with a variety of contrasting verbal pictures of Jesus.30
She goes on to say that
The futuristic pictures that characterize Christian belief, such as life after death
and the Last Judgment, are not based on ordinary sorts of evidence, and while
these pictures need to be connected aright to the rest of the Christian faith, we
need not be able to specify all of the spatial, temporal, and causal connections.
That is, in order to believe in eternal life we need not be able to fit it into a
chronology of historical events nor locate heaven with respect to earth, sun, or
stars.31
In response, we may note first that the accounts of Scripture are not the same
as the teaching of Scripture. Murphy contends that contradictory accounts
aim to teach the mystery and unknowability of matters having to do with
the resurrection. Murphy then absolves herself of the need to harmonize the
statements of the biblical texts, a tactic followed by others who discuss the
relevance of the biblical evidence to human constitution and postmortem
existence. Do we need to develop a coherent and harmonized account of all
the various aspects of biblical teaching? This depends on our theology of
Scripture and on our conception of systematic theology. While the scope of
salient evidence may be debated, central Christian doctrines ought to con-
strain development of our models. The theological principles I have consid-
ered here should have broad agreement.
Third, as with all models, distinguishing among useful explanations and
ad hoc additions proves difficult. As characterized by Zimmerman and oth-
ers, the fissioning of particles upon death would be a miracle conferred upon
those material parts by God. By contrast, Timothy O’Connor (whose version
of emergentism would qualify as a physicalist view as I have defined it) posits
fissioning as a latent disposition of all matter. For him, matter possesses a
132 Jason McMartin
wide variety of dispositions that can be realized in the correct circumstances,

among these are the disposition to generate an individual from a suitably
complex physical arrangement. O’Connor and Jacobs have argued that their
account allows for resurrection, and seemingly that the individual does not
require a specific physical substrate for the sake of survival. Consider, for
example, their discussion of the resurrection of the emergent individual,
Augustine:
We need only suppose that the features of the constituents of Augustine’s

body—and as these are no different in kind from the constituents of any mate-
rial thing, of all material things—and the emergent level aspects of Augustine
jointly have a hitherto entirely latent tendency to jointly cause the composing
simples to fission in the requisite context, which is providentially connected
solely to situations of imminent demise.32
They go on to make a more general point about the various dispositions that
matter has in terms of emergence.
Which emergent features, if any, are latent in the fundamental constituents of

our universe cannot reasonably be assigned any particular a priori probability.
They are discovered empirically, having to be accepted, in the phrase of the
early 20th century emergentist, Samuel Alexander, with “the natural piety of the
investigator.” Given that the posited consequence is ex hypothesi not observ-
able to us in this life, who can say? . . . Experience teaches that the simples that
compose us and all other material things have latent dispositions such that, when
organically arranged in the right sorts of ways—in the first instance, into cells,
then into more complex structures such as functioning nervous systems—they
collectively cause and sustain emergent mental phenomena. It may be that
those latent dispositions are sufficiently robust that when matter is arranged in
functionally equivalent ways from the level of molecular biology on up—with
non-organic components that are differently constituted from but functionally
equivalent to ordinary cells—we’d get the same emergent phenomena. Maybe.
And if so, our view can cheerfully accept it.33
The discovery of these dispositions is an empirical matter. Whether latent

disposition or miraculous intervention, the processes considered here can
only be postulated and not observed. For example, one model considered
here posits two processes: fissioning and fusioning. Whether these processes
miraculously appear or are latent dispositions, how should we decide when
these hypotheses are ad hoc rather than just undiscovered? The theological
evidence cannot indicate that such dispositions (or miracles) do not exist.
The dialectic of this chapter suggests that physicalist models require increas-
ingly complex mechanisms to explain the theological principles connected to
Christ’s intermediate state on Holy Saturday.
CONCLUSION
How do the prospects for physicalist models compare to those for dualist
accounts of postmortem existence and the status of the Incarnation on Holy
Saturday? While admitting that the problem of resurrection is formidable for
the Christian physicalist, Corcoran claims that dualists
are no better off when it comes to making sense of the afterlife than their mate-
rialist siblings. For it is plausible to believe that a Christian Dualist, whether he
or she realizes it or not, faces one of the same challenges as the constitutionalist:
that of accounting for how a body that apparently falls apart and ceases to exist
can nevertheless put in an appearance in the heavenly city.34
Dualists face some of the same problems as physicalists, but not all of the
same ones. Arguably, Corcoran has attempted to foist his problem onto the
dualist by equivocating on the term body. For the dualist, something is my
body if it is ensouled by me. Bodily continuity, then, does not depend on
continuity of the same material stuff. Although I am doubtful that Corcoran’s
claim on this point is correct, it is likely still worthwhile to consider briefly
the prospects for the dualist position in this discussion. The challenge to the
dualist position arises primarily at the point of the resurrection itself. The
empty tomb implies that Jesus returns to his body. Up until this point, it is
similar to Lazarus’s resurrection, though without the second death that Laza-
rus presumably must endure. The key point of discontinuity with our resur-
rection is that Christ’s resurrection body is a transformation of the matter that
comprised his original body, whereas for most believers through history, their
resurrected bodies will not be the same matter as comprised their original
bodies. Resurrection is not reassembly, for all of the reasons that are pressed
against that position.
Perhaps this is not overly alarming, since Paul’s view is that those who are
still alive at Christ’s return will also be changed. Presumably, their bodies
will be changed into the same sort of bodies that their resurrected brethren
possess. So, there are multiple ways for resurrection to occur: return to ensoul
the matter that comprised one’s original body (as in Christ and perhaps oth-
ers), ensouling new material stuff after death, or ensouling new material stuff
without dying. These varying modes of resurrection may appear to contra-
vene SP and C, which affirm continuity between our deaths and resurrections
and Christ’s. However, the dualist has a relatively straightforward way of
explaining the continuity of these cases in the midst of differences related
to mode and matter to be resurrected. While physicalist models can provide
an account that satisfies both continuous (C) and discontinuous (D) facets of
postmortem existence, it proves more difficult to do so while also affirming
134 Jason McMartin
the union of person and full humanity of the incarnate Christ (TU) on Holy
Saturday that provides a soteriological pattern (SP) for our own deaths and
resurrections.35
NOTES
1. Jonathan J. Loose, “Constitution and the Falling Elevator: The Continuing

Incompatibility of Materialism and Resurrection Belief,” Philosophia Christi 14, no.
2 (2012): 439–450; and “The Metaphysics of Constitution and Accounts of the Resur-
rection,” Philosophy Compass 8, no. 9 (2013): 857–865.
2. I don’t include discussion of hylomorphic theories here. Insofar as those theo-
ries resemble physicalist ones, the discussion will be relevant.
3. John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and
the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989).
4. Lynne Rudder Baker, “Christian Materialism in a Scientific Age,” Interna-
tional Journal for Philosophy of Religion 70, no. 1 (2011): 47–48.
5. David Lauber, Barth on the Descent into Hell: God, Atonement, and the Chris-
tian Life (Farnham, UK: Ashgate 2004), 1–41. Lyra Pitstick, Christ’s Descent into
Hell: John Paul II, Joseph Ratzinger, and Hans Urs von Balthasar on the Theology of
Holy Saturday (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), 1–6.
6. As quoted in Thomas C. Oden, The Word of Life (San Francisco: Harper &
Row, 1989), 442.
7. Marc Cortez, Embodied Souls, Ensouled Bodies: An Exercise in Christological
Anthropology and its Significance for the Mind/Body Debate (London: T&T Clark,
2008), 4.
8. Cortez, 4.
9. Oliver Crisp, “Materialist Christology,” in God Incarnate: Explorations in
Christology (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 141.
10. Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Nashville, TN: Broad-
man & Holman, 1994), 353.
11. Trenton Merricks, “How to Live Forever without Saving your Soul: Physical-
ism and Immortality,” in Soul, Body, and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of
Human Persons, ed. Kevin Corcoran (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001),
183–200.
12. Kevin Corcoran, Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alterna-
tive to the Soul (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 131.
13. Peter Van Inwagen, “The possibility of resurrection,” International Journal for
Philosophy of Religion 9, no. 2 (1978): 119–121.
14. That is, without getting embroiled in debates between social and nonsocial
Trinitarians concerning the manner in which we should think of the second person as
a “person.”
15. Eric T. Olson, What are We? A Study in Personal Ontology (Oxford: Oxford
16. Thomas H. McCall considers this challenge to physicalist Christologies in An

Invitation to Analytic Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 119–120.
17. Charles E. Gutenson, “Time, Eternity, and Personal Identity: The Implica-
tions of Trinitarian Theology,” in What About the Soul? Neuroscience and Christian
Anthropology, ed. Joel B. Green (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2004), 122.
18. Joel B. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the
Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 165.
19. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life, 160.
20. Glenn Andrew Peoples, “The Mortal God: Materialism and Christology,” in
The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, eds. Joshua R. Farris
and Charles Taliaferro (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2015), 339–341.
21. Baker, “Christian Materialism in a Scientific Age,” 55.
22. David B. Hershenov, “Soulless Organisms?” American Catholic Philosophical
Quarterly 85, no. 3 (2011): 480.
23. Corcoran, Rethinking Human Nature. Garrett J. DeWeese, “Is There Hope
for Christian Physicalists?” (unpublished manuscript); Dean W. Zimmerman, “The
Compatibility of Materialism and Survival,” Faith and Philosophy 16, no. 2 (1999):
194–212; Dean W. Zimmerman, “Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model
Revisited,” in Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Deaths?
ed. Georg Gasser (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010), 33–50.
24. Baker, “Christian Materialism in a Scientific Age,” 55.
25. Trenton Merricks, “The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting,” in
Reason for the Hope Within, ed. Michael J. Murray (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans:
1999), 284–285.
26. Setting purgatory aside for the time being.
27. My thanks to Jonathan Loose for suggesting this metaphor to me.
28. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996),
668.
29. Taliaferro and Goetz, “The Prospect of Christian Materialism,” 312–313.
30. Nancey Murphy, “The Resurrection Body and Personal Identity: Possibilities
and Limits of Eschatological Knowledge,” in Resurrection: Theological and Scientific
Assessments, eds. Ted Peters, Robert J. Russell, and Michael Welker (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 204–205.
31. Ibid., 205.
32. Timothy O’Connor and Jonathan D. Jacobs, “Emergent Individuals and the
Resurrection,” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 2, no. 2 (2010): 79.
33. Murphy, “The Resurrection Body and Personal Identity,” 79–80.
35. I am grateful to those who have helped to shape my thinking on this topic
thus far. Tom Crisp and Gregg Ten Elshof gave initial feedback on the shape the
argument when I began research on it as a fellow at the Biola University Center for
Christian Thought. Conversations with various colleagues have guided my thinking;
among them: Garry DeWeese, Doug Huffman, and attendees at a presentation of an
earlier version at the Evangelical Philosophical Society meeting in 2014, especially
Keith Hess and Jonathan Loose. I am also grateful for helpful evaluation from the
136 Jason McMartin
participants in the Interim State Writing Workshop in McCall, Idaho in July 2015. In
particular, I’m grateful for the commentary of Thom Atkinson. I am also thankful to
the editors of this volume.
Baker, Lynne Rudder. “Christian Materialism in a Scientific Age.” International

Journal for Philosophy of Religion 70, no. 1 (2011): 47–48.
Cooper, John W. Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the
Monism-Dualism Debate. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989.
Cortez, Marc. Embodied Souls, Ensouled Bodies: An Exercise in Christological
Anthropology and its Significance for the Mind/Body Debate. London: T&T Clark,
2008.
Crisp, Oliver. God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology. London: T&T Clark,
2009.
Loose, Jonathan J. “Constitution and the Falling Elevator: The Continuing Incom-
patibility of Materialism and Resurrection Belief.” Philosophia Christi 14, no. 2
(2012): 439–450.
———. “The Metaphysics of Constitution and Accounts of the Resurrection.”
Philosophy Compass 8, no. 9 (2013): 857–865.
Merricks, Trenton. “The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting.” In
Reason for the Hope Within, edited by Michael J. Murray. Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans: 1999.
Olson, Eric T. What are We? A Study in Personal Ontology. Oxford, UK: Oxford
Schaff, Philip. The Creeds of Christendom. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1919,
vol. 2, p. 62.
Van Inwagen, Peter. “The Possibility of Resurrection.” International Journal for
Philosophy of Religion 9, no. 2 (1978): 119–121.
Chapter 7
Physicalism, the Incarnation,

and Holy Saturday
A Conversation with Karl Barth
Marc Cortez
Christians have long maintained the conviction that Jesus should play some
fundamental role in establishing what we think about the nature of human-
ity. As David Kelsey notes, “the way Christians understand these matters is
shaped in some way by their beliefs about Jesus Christ and God’s relation to
him. That is ultimately what qualifies theological answers to proposed anthro-
pological questions as authentically Christian theological anthropology.”1
Although he goes on to acknowledge that phrases like “the way Christians
understand these matters” and “in some way” indicate the considerable diver-
sity that exists between various construals of the Christology-anthropology
relationship, it remains the case that most Christians would agree that our
beliefs about Jesus should inform our beliefs about humanity in some way.2
Indeed, we could probably go further and maintain that most orthodox Chris-
tians would agree with the following claim of a christological anthropology
(CA):
CA: We should reconsider any anthropological proposal deemed incompatible

with essential beliefs about the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Of course, this raises its own questions about what qualifies as “essential
beliefs,” what it means for two such claims to be “incompatible,” and who
gets to make that determination. Nonetheless, such a statement can still serve
as a worthwhile point of reflection for considering the relationship between
Christology and anthropology. If something like CA is correct, then we
at least have good grounds for interrogating an anthropological claim if it
appears to be in conflict with one or more essential christological beliefs.
One of the truths typically deemed as essential for any orthodox view of
the incarnation is the idea that Jesus remains fully and truly human even after
137
138 Marc Cortez
his death, resurrection, and ascension. As the author of Hebrews maintains,

the eternal priesthood of Christ requires his eternal humanity and thus an eter-
nal incarnation (Heb. 5:1–6; 7:17–21). Let us refer to this as the permanent
incarnation (PI) principle.
PI: The incarnation is a permanent reality such that Jesus remains fully and truly
human from the moment of the incarnation into eternity.
In addition to these long-standing theological intuitions, modern theologi-

cal anthropology is increasingly shaped by yet a third conviction: Christian
physicalism (CP). Many contemporary theologians reject the various kinds
of substance dualism that have dominated Christian reflection about human-
ity, focusing instead on the idea that humans are entirely physical beings.
Without getting overly technical, we can define this third principle as follows:
CP: The human person is entirely comprised of, though not necessarily reduc-
ible to, “those entities and processes that are studied by the physical sciences,
either as those sciences are currently understood, or in some future form that
will not be radically different from their present state.”3
The focus of this chapter is on the intersection of these three theological

convictions. Given the widespread affirmation of CA in the history of theol-
ogy, it should come as a bit of a surprise to discover that the modern trend
toward more physicalist ways of understanding human ontology have not
yet been characterized by any extensive engagement with Christology or the
implications of the incarnation for understanding what it means to say that
humans are embodied beings. Yet that has largely been the case. Over the
last several decades, during which Christian physicalists have refined their
biblical and theological arguments considerably, they have dealt extensively
with the implications of physicalism for things like spiritual growth, worship,
free will, the uniqueness and dignity of human persons, the resurrection, and
a number of other theological issues. Until recently, though, few have given
any significant attention to Christology in their discussions, often making no
more than a passing comment about the “mystery” of the incarnation with the
implication that it is inappropriate to try and solve one mystery (the mind-
body relationship) by appealing to another (the hypostatic union).
This has begun to change recently with a number of works focusing spe-
cifically on what it would mean to develop an explicitly physicalist account
of the incarnation.4 Even in these works, however, people rarely engage
extensively with the relationship between the permanence of the incarnation
and Christian physicalism, particular as it relates to Holy Saturday (that is,
the period between Christ’s death on the cross and his resurrection). On a
Physicalism, the Incarnation, and Holy Saturday 139
physicalist account of the resurrection, it would seem that we need to affirm

that the death of Jesus involved the complete cessation of his human life. If
so, how should we understand the state of the incarnation between Good Fri-
day and Easter? If human persons are comprised entirely of physical entities
and processes, and if the life of the human person consequently comes to an
end at biological death, would this not mean that the human life of Jesus ter-
minated on the cross? Even if we maintain that this human life resumed when
Jesus rose from the grave on Sunday, we still have to wrestle with the status
of his humanity in the interim. At first glance, CP seems to suggest that since
the human life of Jesus ended on Friday and only resumed on Sunday, we
have no real incarnation on Saturday. This may seem like a relatively short
period of time, but it suggests that physicalists need to reject PI and affirm a
kind of gappy incarnation. Indeed, we might wonder if on such an account it
becomes necessary to talk about a kind of reincarnation since the eternal Son
appears to divest himself of humanity at one point and then incarnate himself
again in humanity shortly thereafter.
This brief sketch at least raises prima facie problems for physicalist views
of the human person, but I do not want to pursue here the broader question
of whether physicalism in general has the resources to handle this challenge.5
What I want to do instead is consider one influential proposal that appears to
offer a way of navigating the tension between these three theological prin-
ciples. In the first half of this essay, we will see that Karl Barth offers a vision
of the human person that is firmly committed to a christological anthropology
(CA), the permanence of the incarnation (PI), and Christian physicalism (CP).
Barth clearly affirms the first two, and although he is less clear with respect
to the third, we will see that there are good reasons for associating Barth with
this principle, as well. Given the influence of Barth’s theology in general and
his theological anthropology in particular, he can thus serve as an interesting
test case for exploring how a theologian might resolve the apparent tension
between these principles. Having laid that groundwork, the second half of
the chapter will assess the adequacy of Barth’s approach. Here, I will argue
that although Barth offers a way of affirming all three of these propositions
coherently, his approach raises a number of other important concerns that
undermine the overall viability of this approach to reconciling PI and CP.
KARL BARTH AND THE THREE THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES
Let us begin developing our Barthian response to the problem of Holy Satur-
day by establishing that Barth does indeed affirm all three of the relevant prin-
ciples. His commitment to CA is beyond doubt.6 As he boldly declares, “the
nature of the man Jesus alone is the key to the problem of human nature.”7
140 Marc Cortez
Indeed, Barth pursues the logic of CA with such rigor that many have worried
that his theology exhibits a tendency toward reducing all theological truths,
anthropology included, to Christology. We do not need to concern ourselves
with responding to that worry here, remaining content with noting that Barth
would clearly be comfortable with a logic that requires anthropological truths
to be guided by essential christological truths.
Establishing his commitment to PI can also be done relatively quickly.
According to Barth, the incarnate Christ is “Lord of Time” in the past, the
present, and the future,8 routinely emphasizing the importance of Hebrews
13:8: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” As the God-
man, Jesus is the firm and certain ground upon which all hope for the future
resides. Consequently, his incarnate being exists εἱς τοὺς αἰῶνας.9
A more challenging task arises with respect to CP. At first glance, it seems
relatively easy to identify Barth as a physicalist since he explicitly disavows
dualism of any kind, preferring instead to describe the human in terms of a
“concrete monism” in which body and soul are viewed as an indissoluble
union.10 However, the picture becomes somewhat more complicated when we
appreciate that he also affirmed a “concrete and Christian dualism,”11 eschew-
ing any kind of reductive physicalism that would view the human person as
no more than the sum total of physical operations. Many have thus concluded
that we should view Barth as some kind of holistic dualist, one who recog-
nizes the duality of human ontology while still affirming that body and soul
are both necessary to constitute a rightly functioning human person.12
As I have explained elsewhere, part of the difficulty in identifying Barth’s
ontology is that he focuses primarily on identifying the christological shape
of human existence and is relatively unconcerned with supporting any par-
ticular theory regarding the body-soul relationship.13 On the basis of this
christological starting point, he concludes that the human person is an essen-
tially unified being, that we must nonetheless recognize a body-soul, and that
there is an ordered relationship in that duality such that the soul is the lead-
ing aspect of the human person. The first point supports the conclusion that
Barth was a physicalist, but it is quite possible to hear the latter two as more
friendly to dualism.
Nonetheless, we have at least two reasons for thinking it best to identify
Barth as some kind of physicalist. Despite using the language of “duality” to
talk about the body and the soul, Barth does not envision these as discrete
substances, explicitly disavowing any form of substance dualism.14 Instead,
he prefers to label body and soul as the two “moments” of the one human per-
son, suggesting something closer to the idea of “aspects” common in various
kinds of Christian physicalism.15 Given this more aspectual understanding of
the body-soul relationship, Barth also does not appear to support the conceiv-
able separation of the two.16 Since dualists envision body and soul as discrete
substances, most maintain at least the possibility that they could be separated,
even if they deny that this ever actually happens in practice. Barth, on the
other hand, presents the body-soul relationship in such a way that neither
could possibly exist without the other. The soul is the active principle that
leads and the body is the passive potentiality that follows. Without the other,
each would be a mere abstraction. Barth thus affirms clearly that the human
person ceases to exist at death, which he describes as a state of “non-being.”17
Death is “the limit of our existence in time”18 and “the end of all human and
creaturely life and creativity and work.”19 He does use occasional rhetoric
that suggests the possibility of the soul continuing to exist in isolation from
the body, referring to “a bodiless soul and a soulless body”20 that are now
“alienated” from one another.21 Yet the likeliest explanation for such rhetoric
is that Barth wants to emphasize that death involves the complete destruction
of the human person and the fact that in death the person is utterly incapable
of performing those actions for which they were created by God.22
In light of all this, we have good reasons for thinking that Barth would
have affirmed all three of the theological principles relevant to this discus-
sion. In this next section, we will consider these principles in relationship to
Holy Saturday, seeking to determine if Barth can maintain all three of these
principles in a coherent fashion.
A BARTHIAN RESPONSE TO THE

PROBLEM OF HOLY SATURDAY
As I mentioned in the introduction, the problem of Holy Saturday arises from

the juxtaposition of our three principles. At first glance, CP and PI seem to
be at odds with one another in light of Holy Saturday. Since CA precludes
simply rejecting PI, we seem to have only two options: (1) conclude that PI
is not an essential christological truth, or (2) reject/revise CP. Since Barth is
committed to the essentiality of PI, the latter option appears to be the only
one available to him. Yet, as we have seen, Barth affirms all three. Although
Barth himself does not spend significant time reflecting on the significance
of Holy Saturday, I will argue in this section that his theology offers enough
resources for constructing a Barthian response to the problem of Holy Satur-
day that maintains a coherent commitment to all three of these principles by
drawing on Barth’s distinctive account of creaturely finitude, death, and the
nature of the eschatological state.
As I mentioned, Barth has little to say about Holy Saturday.23 This is partly
because the Bible simply does not say much about the nature of Jesus’s exis-
tence during this period. The relevant texts are brief and rife with interpretive
challenges (for example, Eph. 4:9; 1 Pet. 3:19). One could argue, then, that
142 Marc Cortez
the safest approach would be to avoid making much of Holy Saturday in any
theological discussion, which is the option primarily deployed by Barth. For-
tunately, though, we do not need to speculate about precise details of Jesus’s
existence on Holy Saturday for this event to offer resources for thinking about
human ontology. Barth speaks extensively about the nature of Jesus’s death
and resurrection in general, dealing with his resurrected life at various points
in the Church Dogmatics.24 By connecting some dots between this material
and Holy Saturday, we can begin to construct a broadly Barthian vision of
what it means to say that Jesus remained the incarnate God-man between
Good Friday and Easter.
Consistent with a commitment to physicalism, Barth clearly affirms that
Jesus’s biological death on the cross involved the cessation of his human life.
Jesus “ceased to be” after his physical death such that his existence was “ter-
minated by death like that of every other man.”25 Stated even more bluntly,
“to be dead means not to be.”26 Barth thus leaves no room for even a modi-
fied or holistic form of dualism in which Jesus continues to exist on Holy
Saturday in virtue of some kind of disembodied soul. Death simply is the end
of Jesus’s human life. For Barth, then, whatever we think about Jesus’s exis-
tence after his biological death, we cannot think that he “was given further
time beyond the unique time of his given life on earth back then.”27
This will sound to some as though Barth denied the reality of PI after all,
despite his claims to the contrary. If Jesus’s death is the termination of his
human life, how can we affirm that the eternal Son remains human in any
meaningful sense. Here we need to wade briefly into Barth’s theology of
death. According to Barth, death is the necessary terminus of any finite, crea-
turely existence, as established by the fact that even Jesus died.28 Creaturely
finitude requires that we have both a beginning and an end. Consequently,
Barth rejects any attempt to view the resurrected state of the human person
as a mere continuation of our creaturely histories, as though eternity involved
“an unlimited and unending time.”29 Instead, he contends that the entire his-
tory of the human person—that which establishes our identities as the crea-
tures we are—ends with our biological deaths. Once we have died, there is
nothing more to be added to our stories.
If this is all Barth had to say on the matter, we would have to conclude that
he rejected PI. However, he clearly affirms the importance of the resurrection,
viewing this as the event in which human persons are taken up and “eternally
preserved” in the eternal life of God.30 Since we are entirely physical beings,
we cannot appeal to some kind of immaterial soul that possesses immortality
intrinsically to ground our postmortem hopes. Instead, in death the human
person must “throw himself upon God’s free grace.”31 Although Barth is not
clear on the matter, he seems to envision our eschatological state as being
secure in the fact that God eternally knows us as persons established by the
history of the lives they lived between birth and death. Barth even makes
room for the resurrection of the body in this account, suggesting that since
my body is intrinsic to my identity as the historical person I am, it must also
be a part of the “I” who is made secure in the eternal life of God. To say that
Jesus was raised from the dead, then, is to say that the full reality of who he
was as a human person, including his human body, has been secured in the
eternal life of God. According to Barth, then, the resurrection appearances of
Jesus should not be viewed as additional events in the history of Jesus, which
would suggest that his human history was not brought to an end at his death.
Instead, Barth describes these post-resurrection events as the revelation of the
life and identity of Jesus established by his life and death.32
Using this robustly christological account of creaturely finitude, death, and
resurrection, then, we can begin to see its implications for how Barth might
have responded to the problem of Holy Saturday. Consistent with CP, Barth
maintains that death involves the end of Jesus’s human life, going further
than many Christian physicalists by contending that the resurrection of the
body does not involve the continuation of embodied life as a succession of
temporal moments.33 At death, Jesus would have entered immediately into the
resurrected state in which his historic, human identity is forever secured in
the eternal life of the triune God. Consequently, Barth does not need to think
that the incarnation somehow came to an end on the cross, even for one day.
Instead, the identity of the Son is forever shaped by this particular, embodied
human history.
SOME LINGERING CONCERNS
Barth thus seems able to maintain coherently all three of our theological
propositions. Throughout his discussion, he remains committed to grounding
his anthropological considerations in the essential truths of Christology (CA),
to affirming that the incarnation is an eternal reality (PI), and to maintaining
that Jesus should be understood (in his humanity) as a physical creature,
making no appeal to immaterial substances as part of human ontology (CP).
Nonetheless, his account is not without difficulties, particularly as it relates
to the viability of his way of understanding the eschatological state of the
human person. Although discussing Barth’s view of the resurrection and any
attendant problems in detail would take us too far astray, we can note several
potential difficulties.
First, to the extent that Barth emphasizes that the resurrected state does
not involve any continuation of our creaturely histories, he runs into a prob-
lem with his own christological starting point. The New Testament narra-
tives seem to present a rather clear picture in which Jesus has postmortem
144 Marc Cortez
experiences (resurrection, fellowship with the disciples, ascension, etc.) that

contribute to his human history and identity. Although Barth does not want
to downplay the historicity of these events, his view of death requires him
to interpret them more as instances in which the already complete historical
identity of Jesus is revealed in time rather than seeing them as making any
real contribution to that identity. According to Nathan Hitchcock, this runs
the risk of downplaying the real significance of these events, something that
Barth himself would not want to do.
The startling consequence of Barth’s understanding of the incarnation is that

Christ’s resurrection, ascension, heavenly session, and return are not exaltation
for Him. In fact they do not add a single iota to His person or reconciling work.
The “afterlife” of Jesus generates nothing new on the ontological level, since the
history between conception and cross constitutes His full identity.34
However, if Barth were to jettison the idea that death brings human histories
to their ultimate terminus, then his approach would again be susceptible to the
“gap” worry generated by Holy Saturday.
A similar problem arises with respect to the idea of an immediate resur-
rection proposed in the prior section. To avoid the gap problem, our Barthian
solution suggested that we should view death as a doorway through which
Jesus enters immediately into the resurrected state. This has the distinct
advantage of maintaining the close link between the cross and the resur-
rection that is so important throughout the New Testament. However, such
an approach again risks missing the significance of the fact that the gospel
writers present Friday and Sunday as distinct events in Jesus’s history, theo-
logically inseparable but temporally distinguishable. By collapsing death and
resurrection into a single event, some worry that Barth’s theology misses the
importance of the resurrection for understanding Christ’s atoning work. Colin
Gunton thus warns of a “partial failure” in Barth’s theology because Christ’s
existence “acquires a certain static quality at His death,” in which subsequent
events do not appear to add anything of theological significance to that which
has already been done. Hitchcock offers similar concerns: Barth teaches
that Jesus’s human-temporal identity is exhausted in His death, and that this
Jesus-history, compiled and immutable, is eternalized in the resurrection. But
if Barth means to say that the risen Jesus adds nothing to His history in the
resurrection, then it makes little sense to say He has a continuing history.35
Given that Barth emphasizes the centrality of the resurrection, maintaining
that the bodily resurrection of Christ is the starting point for Christian theol-
ogy, he would certainly object to any suggestion that his view of eternity
undermines the significance of the resurrection. Yet it still seems that there
are some important questions that need to be answered here before we can
appeal to any notion of an immediate resurrection as a way of dealing with

the issue of Holy Saturday.
Another problem arises when we consider the fact that in addition to
his emphasis on death as the completion of our creaturely histories, Barth
routinely speaks of the eschatological state as one in which humans seem
to have at least some kind of ongoing experiences (for example, joy, hope,
fellowship). As Berkouwer rightly noted in his early analysis of Barth’s
eschatology, there is a tension in Barth’s description of the resurrection
between the idea that eternity does not involve “a history without an end”36
and an equally strong emphasis on eternity as a source of hope for the human
person as they somehow “participate” in God’s eternal life.37 Berkouwer thus
comments, “this exposition has brought us face to face with the central prob-
lem of Barth’s eschatology. Continually Barth repeats the polemic against
the idea of ‘continuation,’ and emphasizes man’s existence on this side of
death.”38 Yet it remains entirely unclear how human persons can have the
requisite kinds of experiences without these experiences constituting a con-
tinuation of our creaturely histories. And if our creaturely histories continue
in any way after our biological deaths, then the question of Holy Saturday
arises once again.
We could try to resolve this tension by appealing to Barth’s distinctive
account of the relationship between time and eternity.39 According to Barth,
we should not view these as standing in opposition to one another. Instead,
he contends that God’s eternity encompasses our temporality, taking the lat-
ter to himself in the incarnation. Thus, as he declares, “eternity itself is not
timeless.”40 If resurrected humanity somehow participates in the life of God,
then maybe we can view this as a state in which real experiences are possible
despite the absence of any succession of before and after. Yet it is not clear
that such a move will work for Barth. Even on this account, human persons
still seem to be having eschatological experiences that transcend that which
they experienced during their earthly histories. If so, then their histories are
not ended by death. And if human persons continue to have histories after
their biological deaths, even transcendently eternalized histories, then we
seem to have returned to the challenge of Holy Saturday.
Berkouwer offers a likelier possibility when he suggests that Barth views
the resurrection as a state in which humans are forever known by God. “There
is not a continuation beyond this life, but there is a standing in the attention of
God through eternity.”41 In other words, what Barth has in mind when he says
that we continue to exist despite our creaturely histories coming to an end is
that in the resurrection the entirety of our creaturely existence and identity
is eternally known and cherished by God.42 Ultimately, all of creation will
be “eternally preserved” in the sense that it will always be “open and pres-
ent” to God.43 Barth can thus affirm that “our future non-existence cannot be
146 Marc Cortez
our complete negation.”44 Such a view immediately raises questions about

whether this is truly an adequate understanding of the resurrected life of
human persons. Barth should be commended for his concern to center our
understanding of the eschatological state around God himself. Answering the
question of what resurrected humanity will be like, he answers, “come what
may, we shall be what we shall be under and with God.”45 Barth thus denies
that the human person has any “beyond” of his own, maintaining instead
that “God is his beyond.”46 As important as this might be, however, Barth’s
approach still results in an overly idealized vision of resurrected humanity.
In other words, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we exist as anything
more than static portraits of our earthly histories retained, and yes loved, in
the eternal mind of God.47
This worry about the idealization of the resurrection becomes even sharper
when we consider Barth’s account of the resurrection body. Barth famously
emphasized the importance of bodily resurrection in debates with many of
his contemporaries, affirming with Paul that the bodily resurrection lies at
the center of the Christian faith.48 However, when viewed in light of his com-
ments about the nature of human life in the eschaton, it begins to sound as
though the resurrection of the body is merely the fact that we are “eternally
present” to God as the embodied beings that we have been in our earthly
lives. In other words, since the body is intrinsic to my identity as a human
person, it must also be intrinsic to the person that God cherishes as “me”
throughout eternity. Yet this requires us to surrender widely held beliefs
about the resurrection as involving the creation of new, albeit transcendent,
bodies that constitute a fundamental aspect of our continued creaturely lives.
Some might prefer to flip this argument around and contend that since
Barth consistently affirms the resurrection of the body, he must not envision
the eschatological state in the idealistic terms described above. As Hitchcock
notes, the resurrection of the body often serves for Barth as a way “to hold
open the space between God and redeemed humanity.”49 Consequently, maybe
we should take his emphasis on the resurrection of the body at face value and
use this as the basis for maintaining some kind of continued creaturely exis-
tence in the eschaton despite Barth’s rhetoric to the contrary. However, this
way of resolving the difficulty just returns us again to the challenge of Holy
Saturday. If humans have creaturely histories after death, then we still have
to account for how Holy Saturday fits into that history. If Barth tries to avoid
this by maintaining that we have physical bodies in the eschaton while still
denying that this means we must have continuing histories, we can rightly
ask about what it means to say that these bodies are “physical” if they are
not characterized by the sequentiality that characterizes all physical realities.
I suppose Barth could appeal to the fact that we are continually discovering
that the physical universe is far stranger than we realize, using this as a basis
for describing the body of the resurrection as physical even while denying
its temporality, and probably things like its spatiality and divisibility as well
since those characteristics are difficult to separate from at least some form of
sequentiality. It seems reasonable to ask, though, whether such a view really
qualifies as “physical.” A “body” that is nontemporal, nonspatial, and non-
divisible begins to sound much more like an immaterial soul than a material
body. Indeed, such a view would press toward conclusions that even many
dualists would reject as a proper view of an immaterial soul (e.g., nontempo-
rality). Consequently, it is not clear that Barth can solve the problem of what
sounds like an overly idealized picture of the resurrection body by appealing
to some kind of radically transformed body without raising worries about
whether this is still a form of physicalism. It seems legitimate to ask at times
whether Barth is claiming to be a physicalist while using dualist-sounding
rhetoric to avoid some of the problems, especially those related to eschatol-
ogy, generated by physicalism.
CONCLUSION
We began this discussion by looking at three theological principles held by

many modern theologians that seem to produce some interesting challenges
when applied to Holy Saturday. According to the first, essential christologi-
cal truths should play a fundamental rule in determining what we think about
humanity (CA). Second, that Jesus Christ remains fully and truly human
even after his death and resurrection is an essential christological truth (PI).
Third, human persons are complex physical beings such that we do not need
to appeal to any kind of immaterial soul to understand human ontology (CP).
When we consider the state of the incarnation on Holy Saturday, the second
and third principles generate an interesting tension. How can Jesus still be
fully and truly human between his death and resurrection if his human life
comes to a complete end with his death on the cross? Even if we appeal to
his resurrection on Sunday to ground the eternal significance of the incarna-
tion, we still seem to have an odd “gap” in our understanding of the incarna-
tion that needs to be addressed. And in light of the first principle, we cannot
address the problem by jettisoning the permanence of the incarnation unless
we think we can make an argument that theologians have incorrectly identi-
fied this as an essential christological truth.
We then explored Karl Barth’s theology as offering an interesting case
study in how someone might try to affirm all three of these theological prin-
ciples coherently. This was not to suggest that Barth’s theology presents the
148 Marc Cortez
only way of addressing this difficulty, or even the best one. The widespread
influence of his theology combined with the fact that he deals so extensively
with many of the issues involved in this discussion, though, make him an
excellent dialog partner.
In the end, I argued that Barth’s distinctive view of human death and the
resurrected state provides resources for affirming all three of these theologi-
cal principles coherently. In his humanity, Jesus is an entirely physical being.
Consequently, his human life comes to a complete end with his death on
the cross. Nonetheless, he does not cease to exist entirely because death is
merely the doorway into the resurrected state in which human persons stand
before God and are preserved and cherished by him forever. If we apply this
framework to Holy Saturday, then, we can say that the incarnation does not
end, even for a moment, with Jesus’s death. Jesus’s own humanity enters
immediately into the presence of God and participates in the life of God
forever.
Despite the fact that such an account can affirm all three of our theologi-
cal principles coherently, however, I also argued that Barth’s distinctive way
of approaching this issue has its own drawbacks, notably relating to his
way of understanding death and the afterlife. Viewed from one perspec-
tive, Barth’s understanding of the human person requires him to say that
our creaturely histories come to a complete end at death, thus viewing the
afterlife in largely idealistic terms as we are “preserved” in God’s love. Such
an account quickly runs into difficulties with affirming the embodied nature
of resurrected life and long-held convictions about the eschaton involving at
least some kind of continued history for God’s creatures. More importantly
for the purposes of this chapter, such a conclusion also runs into difficulties
with the fact that Jesus himself seems to have a continued history after his
death—including his resurrection, the post-resurrection appearances, and
the ascension. Despite his affirmation of CA, Barth unfortunately does not
allow these events to play an adequate role in guiding his understanding of
humanity in general. If we take a different perspective on Barth’s view of the
afterlife and emphasize instead his language about a bodily resurrection that
involves at least some kind of continued experiences for the human person,
then we do not seem to have made much progress in dealing with the ques-
tion of Holy Saturday.
In the end, to the extent that Barth offers an interestingly different way for
a Christian physicalist to deal with Holy Saturday, his account runs into sub-
stantial difficulties in other areas. However, if we revise his account to deal
with those difficulties, we lose the distinctive elements that offered unique
resources for dealing with the continuity of the incarnation after Jesus’s
death. Consequently, Christian physcialists may need to look elsewhere to
address this interesting question.
NOTES
1. David H. Kelsey, Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology (Louis-

ville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 8–9.
2. See especially Marc Cortez, Christological Anthropology in Historical
Perspective: Ancient and Contemporary Approaches to Theological Anthropology
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016).
3. Marc Cortez, Embodied Souls, Ensouled Bodies: An Exercise in Christological
Anthropology and Its Significance for the Mind/Body Debate (New York: T&T Clark,
2008), 117.
4. For example, Trenton Merricks, “The Word Made Flesh: Dualism, Physical-
ism, and the Incarnation,” in Persons: Human and Divine, eds. Peter van Inwagen and
Dean W. Zimmerman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 281–300; Oliver
Crisp, God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology (New York: T & T Clark, 2009),
137–154; Glenn Andrew Peoples, “The Mortal God: Materialism and Christology,” in
The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, eds. Joshua R. Farris
and Charles Taliaferro (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015), 331–344; Kevin W. Sharpe,
“The Incarnation, Soul-Free: Physicalism, Kind Membership, and the Incarnation,”
Religious Studies 53, no. 1 (2017): 117–131.
5. See especially the chapter in this volume by Jason McMartin.
6. See Marc Cortez, “What Does It Mean to Call Karl Barth a ‘Christocentric’
Theologian?,” Scottish Journal of Theology 60, no. 2 (2007): 127–143 and Marc Cortez,
“The Madness in Our Method: Christology as the Necessary Starting Point for Theolog-
ical Anthropology,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology,
ed. Joshua R. Farris and Charles Taliaferro (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015), 15–26.
7. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 13 vols., eds. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Tor-
rance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–75), III/2, 43. Hereafter referred to as CD.
8. CD III/2, 437–511.
9. CD III/2, 485.
10. CD III/2, 393.
11. CD III/2, 394.
12. For example, Robert E. Willis, The Ethics of Karl Barth (Leiden: Brill, 1971),
236; Paul W. Newman, “Humanity with Spirit,” Scottish Journal of Theology 34, no.
5 (1981): 423; Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: An Ecological Doctrine of Cre-
ation, ed. and trans. by Margaret Kohl (London: SCM, 1985), 252; Daniel J. Price,
Karl Barth’s Anthropology in Light of Modern Thought (Grand Rapids, MI: William
B. Eerdmans, 2002), 254–255.
13. Cortez, Embodied Souls, Ensouled Bodies.
14. For example, CD III/2, 380–381. Barth applies this critique to various forms
of substance dualism, but many of his worries fail to capture more recent forms of
dualism with their emphasis on the holistic nature of the human person.
15. CD III/2, 419.
16. See especially CD III/2, 418–436.
17. CD III/2, 595–595.
18. CD III/4, 588.
150 Marc Cortez
19. CD IV/2, 295.

20. CD, III/2, 355.
21. CD III/2, 425.
22. For other possible interpretations of Barth’s language regarding the intermedi-
ate state, see Cortez, Embodied Souls, Ensouled Bodies, 89–92. None of this resolves
the question of precisely what kind of physicalism best accounts for Barth’s position
(for example, dual-aspect monism, emergent monism, nonreductive physicalism).
Since the distinctions between those broad types of physicalism do not have any direct
bearing on the arguments we will be considering here, though, we can set that ques-
tion aside for now.
23. For a more extended analysis of Barth on this point, see David Lauber, Barth
on the Descent into Hell: God, Atonement, and the Christian Life (Farnham, UK:
Ashgate, 2004).
24. For more on Barth’s theology of death, see Marc Cortez, ReSourcing Theologi-
cal Anthropology: A Constructive Account of Humanity in the Light of Christ (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), chapter 8.
25. CD IV/3.1, 312.
26. CD IV/1, 301.
27. CD III/2, 477; cf. I/2, 53.
28. See especially CD III/2, 440, 596.
29. CD III/4, 572–573.
30. CD III/3, 89.
31. CD III/2, 569.
32. For a nice discussion of this, see Nathan Hitchcock, Karl Barth and the Resur-
rection of the Flesh: The Loss of the Body in Participatory Eschatology (Eugene, OR:
Pickwick, 2013), 109–146.
33. As a result, Barth’s approach has the added benefit of avoiding some of the
difficult questions that surround how a physicalist can maintain continuity of personal
identity through such a radical change as death and resurrection. For Barth, my escha-
tological identity just is the eternal repetition of my historical, embodied identity.
34. Hitchcock, Karl Barth and the Resurrection of the Flesh, 121.
35. Hitchcock, Karl Barth and the Resurrection of the Flesh, 93–94.
36. CD, III/3, 233.
37. G. C. Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth (Lon-
don: Paternoster, 1956), 151–165.
38. Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, 160.
39. See George Hunsinger, “Jesus as the Lord of Time According to Karl Barth,”
Zeitschrift Für Dialektische Theologie (2010): 113–127.
40. CD III/2, 526.
41. Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, 163–164.
42. It is possible, then, that Barth had in mind something similar to what is now
described as a four-dimensional view of identity (see Theodore Sider, Four-Dimen-
sionalism [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001]; Michael C. Rea, “Four-Dimensionalism,”
in The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, eds. Michael J. Loux and Dean Zimmerman
[New York: Oxford University Press, 2003], 246–280).
43. CD III/3, 89.
44. CD III/2, 611.

45. CD III/2, 545.
46. CD III/2, 632. Schurr points out that Barth routinely used language that sug-
gests continued personal existence, so we must take that into account. Yet he main-
tains nonetheless that “Barth does not seem to have provided the categories within
which the identity of subjective continuity beyond death could be affirmed, but he
nevertheless insists on it, and with his present emphasis on durable eternity could
allow for it” (George M. Schurr, “Brunner and Barth on Life after Death,” Journal of
Religious Thought 24, no. 2 [1967]: 102).
47. By raising the concern about an “idealized” view of the body in the resurrec-
tion, I am not suggesting that Barth qualifies as an idealist in the more technical sense
(for example, Spinozan or Berkleyan idealism). Indeed, Barth is equally clear in his
rejection of all forms of such “monistic spiritualism” (CD III/2, 390). Instead, I intend
the adjective to refer only to the worry that the resurrected body only endures as some
kind of eternal “idea”—that is, an object eternally known and loved by God.
48. See esp. Karl Barth, The Resurrection of the Dead, ed. R. Dale Dawson, trans.
H. J. Stenning (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015).
49. Hitchcock, Karl Barth and the Resurrection of the Flesh, 54.
Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Thomas F.

Torrance. Vol. III, no. 2. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1960.
Barth, Karl. The Resurrection of the Dead, edited by R. Dale Dawson. Translated by H. J.
Stenning. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015.
Cortez, Marc. Embodied Souls, Ensouled Bodies: An Exercise in Christological
Anthropology and Its Significance for the Mind/Body Debate. New York: T&T
Clark, 2008.
Dawson, R. Dale. The Resurrection in Karl Barth. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2007.
Fergusson, David. “Barth’s Resurrection of the Dead: Further Reflections.” Scottish
Journal of Theology 56, no. 2 (2003): 65–72.
Hitchcock, Nathan. Karl Barth and the Resurrection of the Flesh: The Loss of the
Body in Participatory Eschatology. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2013.
Lauber, David. Barth on the Descent into Hell: God, Atonement, and the Christian
Life. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2004.
Lewis, Alan E. Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003.
Merricks, Trenton. “The Word Made Flesh: Dualism, Physicalism, and the Incarna-
tion.” In Persons: Human and Divine, edited by Peter van Inwagen and Dean W.
Zimmerman, 281–300. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Chapter 8
Physicalist Christology and

the Two Sons Worry
R. T. Mullins
Christian physicalists like Trenton Merricks have suggested that physicalism

helps solve various problems with the doctrine of the incarnation.1 Though
the suggestions are underdeveloped, one claim seems to be that physicalism
is better suited to avoid the heresy of Nestorianism than substance dualism.2
In this chapter, I shall argue that physicalism does not help the Christian
theologian avoid Nestorianism. I shall do this by examining an important dis-
tinction developed after the Council of Chalcedon known as the anhypostasia/
enhypostasia distinction. This distinction is part of the neo-Chalcedonian
Christology that is endorsed at the Fifth Ecumenical Council. Though this
distinction is widely held by theologians to be part of the orthodox Chris-
tological deposit, it has been grossly overlooked by Christian philosophers.
In the first part of this chapter, I shall briefly articulate the main differences
between substance dualism and physicalism. In the second part, I shall outline
the desiderata that must be satisfied by any ecumenically orthodox account of
the incarnation. In the third part, I will explain why a physicalist might think
that her anthropology better avoids Nestorianism than dualism. In the fourth
part, I shall explain the content and purpose of the anhypostasia/enhypostasia
distinction. In particular, I shall explain how it is used to refute Nestorianism.
In the fifth part, I shall argue that physicalism does not in fact avoid Nesto-
rianism because it easily violates the anhypostasia/enhypostasia distinction.
PHYSICALISM AND DUALISM
Physicalism is the view that a human person is identical to, or consists only
of, a physical substance. Physicalists are divided over which physical sub-
stance a human person is in fact identical to, but the two most common claims
153
154 R. T. Mullins
are that a human person is either identical to a human brain, or identical to a

human body.3
A further division among physicalists is over mental properties. A reduc-
tive physicalist will say that mental properties are reducible to physical
properties, whereas a nonreductivist will maintain that mental properties are
irreducible.4 I shall narrow my focus on nonreductive physicalism since it is
the most widely held view today among physicalists.
Substance dualism is the view that a human person is comprised of
two substances: an immaterial substance and a physical substance. On the
version of dualism that I defend, a person is identical to an immaterial
substance, often called a mind or a soul. A person is a soul that has the
capacity to think and perform free actions.5 A person is a center of con-
sciousness that can exemplify a variety of mental properties like thought,
emotion, self-reflection, self-awareness,etc. Another way to put this is
that a person has a first-person perspective. Further, I maintain that in
order for a person to be human, that person must be, or previously have
been, appropriately related to a human body.6 This appropriate relation is
called embodiment. Through embodiment, a soul comes to have physical
properties.
Trenton Merricks maintains that only physicalism can make good on the
claim that a human person has physical properties. According to Merricks,
only physical objects can have physical properties.7 He speaks as if the
substance dualist will agree with this statement, but I don’t think that the
substance dualist should agree with this statement. According to the dualist
E. J. Lowe, a person can have physical properties in a derivative way in virtue
of having a physical body.8 Perhaps a physicalist like Merricks should say
that only physical objects can have physical properties in a fundamental or
nonderivative way. I believe that a dualist can agree to this. On the version of
dualism that I defend, souls can have physical properties in a derivative way
in virtue of being embodied.
I maintain that souls also can have spatial location. One might worry that
this confuses immaterial and material objects. This worry is due to the fact
that one way of demarcating immaterial and material objects is spatial loca-
tion. This is a demarcation suggested by René Descartes. Not all dualists
agree with this demarcation. In fact, there is a long tradition of rejecting this
demarcation. For example, the Cambridge Platonists found Descartes’s sug-
gestion utterly shocking since it entailed that immaterial substances like souls
and God literally had no location, thus giving Descartes’s view the deroga-
tory term “nullibism.”9
Contemporary dualists like Charles Taliaffero, Stewart Goetz, and Richard
Swinburne maintain that a human soul is located where its body is.10 How,
then, can an immaterial and material object be distinguished? One way to
Physicalist Christology and the Two Sons Worry 155
distinguish the two is suggested by the medieval philosopher Nicole Oresme.

According to Oresme, a soul and a body both have spatial location. A physi-
cal object, however, fills space in a way that is impenetrable such that other
physical objects cannot be located in the same spatial location. Say that an
atom is located in point p1 of space. As long as that atom is located at that
spatial point, no other atom can be located there. According Oresme, souls are
different. Souls can occupy a point in space without filling it in this impen-
etrable way. Several immaterial objects could be wholly located at the same
point in space. For instance, God can be wholly located at the same point in
space as you or I. Oresme also offers the example of Jesus’s encounter with
a demon-possessed man. The man in question is said to be possessed by a
legion of demons. Oresme thinks that all of these demons are located in the
same spatial region.11
Embodiment: The Physicalist Story

Merricks maintains that whatever is involved in the incarnation of the Son
of God, it must involve embodiment.12 I believe that the dualist should agree
with Merricks on this point. I cannot understand how God the Son could
become human without being embodied. Of course, a question naturally
arises at this point. What does it mean to be embodied? There are quite a
few discussions of embodiment in the literature, but there appear to be two
basic accounts.13 The first is physical realization. This assumes a physicalist
anthropology of human persons. This view holds that “a person P is embod-
ied in body B if and only if all the (intrinsic) states of P are wholly realized
by (intrinsic) states of B.”14 One way to put this is that all of P’s mental
states supervene upon the brain states of B.15 Another way to put this is that a
person is identical to a body, though a person can have mental states that are
irreducible to the physical. This is the sort of view that a physicalist will wish
to endorse in her Christology.
However, Brian Leftow and Robin Le Poidevin note that such a thing is
impossible because the Son—an immaterial thing—cannot become wholly
material.16 My inclination is to agree with Leftow and Le Poidevin here, but I
will not press the point too much. Like most critics of physicalist Christology,
I find it utterly mysterious as to how an immaterial person like the Son can
become identical to a physical body. Merricks offers some remarks about the
possibility of this, but I find them to be unilluminating.17
However, I do not wish to push this point too much since the majority of
criticisms of physicalist Christology focus on the impossibility of an imma-
terial person becoming wholly material. My incarnation-based objections
against physicalist Christology will focus on different issues that have yet to
be explored.
156 R. T. Mullins
Embodiment: The Dualist Story

The previous account of embodiment will not help the dualist understand the
doctrine of the incarnation. There is a second broad account of embodiment
that is more congenial with immaterial minds and cuts things in terms of a
causal connection between the mind and the body. A mind is fully embodied
in a physical body if and only if the following five conditions are met. The
first condition is that the disturbances of the physical body can cause pain in
the mind. Also, the various goings-on in the body can cause pleasure in the
mind. If the body stubs a toe, the mind will feel pain. If the body is hugged
in the right way, the mind will feel pleasure. Second, the mind can feel the
inside of the body. An example would be the feeling of an empty stomach.
Third, the mind can move the body through a basic action. A basic action
is when an agent can perform an act without having to perform some other
action in order to accomplish the first act. For instance, I move my arm by a
basic act. I do not move the cup of water on my desk by a basic act. Fourth,
the mind can look out from the world from where the body is. The body is
the mind’s locus of perception of the world. The mind acquires perceptual
knowledge as mediated through the body. Fifth, the thoughts and feelings of
the mind can be affected by the things that go on in the body.18
Merricks argues that this dualistic account of embodiment runs into a series
of problems. In particular, Merricks argues that the dualist cannot explain
how the Son is uniquely embodied in a particular body. Further, he says that
the dualist cannot explain how the Father and Holy Spirit are not embodied
in the same body as the Son.
For his argument, Merricks boils down these conditions to two main
points: direct causal control, and immediate epistemic access to, a body.
Given God’s omnipotence, God can directly control every single body that
exists. Given God’s omniscience, Merricks thinks that God has immediate
epistemic access to every single body that exists. If to be embodied is to have
direct control and immediate epistemic access to a body, then God surely
must be embodied in every physical object.19 So, according to Merricks, the
dualist cannot explain the unique embodiment of the Son in His particular
human nature. Nor can the dualist explain how the Father and Holy Spirit are
not embodied in the Son’s human nature, as well. This is a serious problem,
but I believe that several of the conditions for dualistic embodiment can be
nuanced in order to avoid this problem.
First, it seems to me that Merricks has overlooked a particular assump-
tion at play in these conditions. Embodiment is not simply direct causal
control and immediate epistemic access to a body. As Luke Van Horn
points out, embodiment involves the body having a causal disposition to
cause various states in the mind.20 We have no good reason to think that
every creaturely body in the universe has the causal disposition to cause
certain mental states in God the Son in the way that is captured by embodi-
ment. For example, when I stub my toe, it causes me direct and immediate
pain. When I see you stub your toe, I might have sympathy pain, but this
is quite different. My sympathy pain is not immediately caused by your
body. Instead, my sympathy pain is derivative. Sympathy, or empathy,
involves a person imaginatively constructing a copy of another person’s
conscious states. So the empath’s sympathy pain is derivative, and not
direct nor immediate. The empath’s pain is not directly and immediately
caused by the other person’s body. I believe that we have good reasons for
affirming that God has this kind of empathetic knowledge, though a full
discussion of this would take us off topic.21 I see no good reason to believe
that every creaturely body in the universe has the dispositional power to
cause direct and immediate states in the mind of God in the way captured
by embodiment.
Second, Merricks makes an interesting suggestion to which I think the
dualist should pay attention. Merricks suggests that whatever embodiment is
for the dualist, it must be the precondition for having the sort of direct causal
control and immediate epistemic access captured in the five conditions noted
above. I think this is right. The causal dispositions that Van Horn identifies
go some way toward capturing this, but more might be needed.
Recall that condition four says that the locus of a mind is from the particu-
lar body in which it is embodied. I feel that this condition is important for
several reasons. First, imagine the case of an individual who is paralyzed by
a car accident. This person now no longer has direct control over most of her
body. Yet she still has her locus on the world bound to this particular body.
What explains this boundedness? Why exactly is a soul bound to one body
and not another? Why is it that my soul has direct causal control and immedi-
ate epistemic access to my body and not yours?
A dualist can posit that there are relatively simple laws of nature called psy-
chophysical laws.22 Psychophysical laws create a binding relation between a
soul and a body such that a) the soul is causally disposed to causally interact
with a particular body, and b) a particular body is causally disposed to caus-
ally interact with a particular soul. This binding relation is what gives rise to
the other conditions discussed above for embodiment.
Someone like Merricks might point out that God could bind Himself to
everybody, even though God does not do so. One might develop an objection
that says that the mere possibility of being so bound is sufficient for embodi-
ment. However, this is mistaken. The mere possibility of being bound to a
body is not enough to be embodied. One must actually be bound through the
appropriate psychophysical laws to a particular body in order for embodiment
to obtain.23
158 R. T. Mullins
One might worry that positing this binding relation is ad hoc. I beg to
differ. This binding relation looks similar to the early Christian usage of the
term perichoresis. What I am asserting is that there is prima facie motivation
to posit a perichoretic binding relation since it has a great deal of precedent
within the Christian tradition. I don’t claim that the mere existence of a wide-
spread acceptance of this in the tradition provides the dualist with ultima
facie motivation for affirming perichoresis. All that I need for the moment,
however, is the prima facie motivation in order to ward off the charge of
being too ad hoc.
What exactly is perichoresis? This is a tricky term because Christian theol-
ogy uses this term in different ways in the doctrines of the Trinity and the
incarnation.24 Quite literally, perichoresis means “interpenetration.”25 In Neo-
platonic thought, perichoresis was used to describe the relationship between a
soul and body.26 Many early Church Fathers would appeal to the soul’s rela-
tion to the body as a way of describing the incarnation of the Son. The idea
from the early fathers is that the Son stands in a perichoretic relation to His
humanity, but does not stand in a perichoretic relation to the rest of human-
ity. The dualist can appeal to the Church tradition on this point to avoid the
accusation that her view is ad hoc.
CHRISTOLOGICAL DESIDERATA
Now that we have the basic dualist and physicalist story before us, we
can delve deeper into the doctrine of the incarnation. I shall develop some
of the basic Christological desiderata derived from the seven ecumenical
councils: Nicaea I, Constantinople I, Ephesus, Chalcedon, Constantinople
II, Constantinople III, and Nicaea II. Due to space constraints, I cannot out-
line all of the Christological desiderata. I shall limit myself to certain core
desiderata that are relevant for the discussion at hand. For interested readers,
I have elsewhere offered a more thorough discussion of the Christological
desiderata.27
On the standard story, the most significant aspects of ecumenical Christol-
ogy come from the Council of Chalcedon in 451. What does Chalcedonian
Christology look like? Oliver Crisp summarizes five relevant desiderata from
the Chalcedonian creed:
1. Christ is of one substance (homoousious) with the Father.

2. Christ is eternally begotten of the Father according to his divinity and
temporally begotten of the Virgin Mary according to his humanity.
3. Christ is one theanthropic (divine-human) person (hypostasis) subsisting
in two natures (phuseis), which are held together in a personal union.
4. Christ’s two natures remain intact in the personal union, without being
confused or mingled together to form some sort of hybrid entity or tertium
quid.
5. Christ’s two natures are a fully divine nature and a fully human nature,
respectively, his human nature consisting of a human body and a “ratio-
nal” soul.28
For the purposes of this chapter, I shall focus my critique of physicalist Chris-
tology on its inability to offer an adequate account of (3). In particular, I shall
argue that a physicalist Christology is subject to the charge of Nestorianism.
Nestorianism is a heresy condemned at Chalcedon, deriving its name from
the early Church theologian Nestorius. In contemporary parlance, Nestorian-
ism is a term applied to any view that entails that there are two persons in
Christ, instead of one person.
Christological Models
There are various models of the incarnation at large today, many of which
claiming to be consistent with ecumenical Christology.29 The dominant
strands are called composite Christologies because they identify different
“parts” that constitute Jesus Christ.30 (The language of “parts” is being used
here rather loosely. It does not assume a classical mereology.31) All of the
Christologies under consideration here claim that God the Son is one part
of Jesus Christ, and that a human body is another part. However, composite
Christologies can involve two, three, or four parts of the composite Christ
depending on one’s philosophical anthropology. The traditional Christian
view is sometimes called the two-minds view, and it is a three-part Christol-
ogy since it posits that Jesus Christ is a divine mind (God the Son), a human
mind (a concrete soul), and a human body.32 Someone who is a substance
dualist may find this attractive. However, she may also find a two-part Chris-
tology equally attractive. A two-part Christology could involve God the Son
and a human body. This is where the divine mind constitutes a human person
by being connected to a human body in the appropriate way.33 A trichotomist
will most likely have a four-part Christology since she holds that human per-
sons are comprised of a body, soul, and spirit. In this instance, God the Son
would take on a human body, a human soul, and a human spirit. However, it
is not necessary for a trichotomist to hold to a four-part Christology.
The early Church theologian Apollinaris was a trichotomist who believed
that human persons are comprised of a human body, a rational soul, and an
animal soul. He had a three-part Christology since, on his view, the Son
already is a rational soul. According to Apollinaris, if the Son assumed
another rational soul, that would involve the Son assuming another person.
160 R. T. Mullins
That would be the heresy we are calling Nestorianism, and Apollinaris sought
to avoid this. For Apollinaris, the Son counts as fully human because the Son
is a rational soul with an animal soul and a human body. Apollinaris says, “If,
then, a human being is made up of three parts, the Lord is also a human being,
for the Lord surely is made up of three parts: spirit and soul and body.”34
Closely related to this discussion of philosophical anthropology is the
question of the divine and human will. Monothelites hold that the Son only
has one will, whereas dyothelites hold that the Son has two wills: a human
and a divine will.35 A monothelite will say that only persons have a will,
whereas a dyothelite will maintain that natures have a will.36 A dyothelite will
say that since Christ took on a human nature, He must have taken on a human
will, as well. What might this look like? Say one has a three-part Christology
and is a dyothelite. On this view, God the Son—a divine mind—assumes a
human mind, a human body, and a human will.
A three-part dyothelite Christology becomes the majority view after the
seventh century for all of those who adhere to the seven ecumenical coun-
cils.37 On this version of the three-part dyothelite Christology, Jesus Christ
is composed of God the Son, a rational soul with a numerically distinct will,
and a human body.38
A WORRY ABOUT NESTORIANISM
Merricks complains that it is unclear how the standard three-part dyothelite

Christology can avoid the entailment that there are two persons in Jesus
Christ. He points out that the individual human nature that God the Son
assumes is intrinsically like a complete human person. Thus, he finds it dif-
ficult to see how this complete human nature is not in fact a complete human
person. Merricks notes that if this complete human nature had not been
assumed by the Son, this complete human nature would have been a human
person. This, says Merricks, looks like Nestorianism.39 What Merricks does
not seem to realize is that he has articulated a deep worry that the theologians
sought to address prior to, and in the aftermath of, the Council of Chalcedon.
I shall call it the Two Sons Worry in order to avoid the anachronism of iden-
tifying various and diverse views as Nestorian.
The Two Sons Worry is an incredibly popular argument in the early
Church, and it comes in several forms. One form of the argument from
Eunomius goes as follows: a human person is a soul and a body. If the Son
assumed a soul and a body, the Son assumed a human person. So there are
two sons (two persons) in the incarnation.40 That is heresy.
It isn’t hard for a physicalist to construct a Two Sons Worry argument
against the dualist who affirms the standard three-part dyothelite Christology.
On this Christology, God the Son is a divine mind with a will. God the Son
assumes a human soul and body. This human soul has its own distinct will.
Earlier it was noted that a dualist affirms that a person is an immaterial sub-
stance that has the capacity to think and perform free actions. On the stan-
dard three-part dyothelite Christology, there are two immaterial substances
in Christ that have the capacity to think and perform free actions. Given the
dualist’s own understanding of personhood, this Christology seems to entail
that there are two persons in Christ—that is, two sons plain and simple.
Given this, it makes sense why a physicalist might think that her view fits
better with ecumenical Christology. On a physicalist Christology, the Son
does not assume a human soul. Instead, the Son becomes identical to a human
body. So there should be no worry of having too many thinkers in Christ
given this physicalist anthropology. In other words, it seems like a physicalist
Christology is the best way to affirm that there is only one person in Christ.
However, I don’t find this physicalist move to be obvious. The physicalist
does have some explaining to do. She has not yet explained how God the Son
is the only person in the incarnation. By itself, the body of Jesus would have
all of the mental properties needed to be a complete human person. The body
would be a complete human person without God the Son given a physicalist
anthropology. What about the incarnation prevents this from being the case?
I will have more to say on this later.
In the fifth section, I shall argue that the physicalist does not escape the
Two Sons Worry quite so easily. Before doing so, I must articulate an impor-
tant ecumenical constraint on Christological theorizing. As I shall argue, this
constraint prevents the physicalist from claiming victory over the dualist with
regards to avoiding the Two Sons Worry.
THE NEO-CHALCEDONIAN CHRISTOLOGY

OF CONSTANTINOPLE II
In this section, I shall articulate the anhypostasia/enhypostasia distinction

developed in the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon. One of the motiva-
tions for this distinction is to avoid the Two Sons Worry by placing a con-
straint on Christological theorizing. After articulating this distinction, I shall
argue that Merricks’s physicalist anthropology does not avoid the Two Sons
Worry.
Merricks, like most Christian philosophers, focuses his Christology
almost exclusively on the Council of Chalcedon. He shows no awareness
of the Christological developments after Chalcedon. This is understandable.
As Andrew Louth points out, “Older treatments of the history of Christian
doctrine have usually presented the Definition of Chalcedon (often reduced,
162 R. T. Mullins
wrongly, to the final epitome) as the culmination of patristic Christology,

but it is better seen as a watershed, for much water was still to flow after the
council.”41
What must be understood is that the Council of Chalcedon did not really
settle many theological debates, nor did it create the Church unity that it
sought. Louth explains that,
Although the aim of the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon was to secure
unity, the result was the opposite: the council opened divisions in the Church
that have never been healed between those who accepted the council (who
called themselves Orthodox or Catholic, but were called by their opponents
dyophysites, if not “Nestorians”) and those who rejected the council (who also
called themselves Orthodox or Catholic, and were called by their opponents
monophysites, if not “Eutychians,” and by modern scholars “miaphysites”—a
barbarous coinage).42
According to G. L. Prestige, the success of the Council “was only negative;

they defined what was false but provided no positive and convincing ratio-
nalisation of the right faith.”43 This lack of a convincing rationalization can
be felt in the aftermath of Chalcedon. After the Formula of Chalcedon was
framed, many Christians in the East remained unconvinced that there was a
clear difference between the defenders of Chalcedon and the Nestorians.44
Christopher Beeley explains that the Chalcedonian definition, which was
enforced under governmental pressure, “left the basic identity of Christ and
the nature of the union disastrously ambiguous from the point of view of the
more unitive traditions. It is no wonder that Nestorius reportedly felt vindi-
cated by the result.”45 According to Prestige, Nestorius thought that Chalce-
don and Pope Leo’s Tome “expressed exactly what he himself had always
believed.”46 Given this, the inability of Eastern Christians to see a difference
between Chalcedon and Nestorianism is understandable.
The monophysite Christians in the East at that time were not happy with
“the sickness of Chalcedon” that declared that Christ had two natures.47 These
Christians are called monophysites because they denied that Jesus Christ had
two natures, claiming instead that Jesus had only one nature. Like Chalcedon,
many monophysites held to a three-part composite Christology, but unlike
Chalcedon they held that in the incarnation the two natures became one
nature—without confusion—through the composition. These monophysites
maintained that if there are two natures in the incarnation, then there are two
people. That would be Nestorianism. Again, we see the Two Sons Worry at
play here. Hence, why the monophysites called the Chalcedonian Christology
a “sickness.”
While many in the East were distraught over the result of Chalcedon, vari-
ous Nestorian parties felt that they were able to interpret Chalcedon in such
a way that they could agree to the formula. In fact, one of the main motiva-
tions for the Fifth Ecumenical Council, Constantinople II (553), was to give
a proper interpretation of Chalcedon that fully excluded Nestorianism.48
The Eastern Church made a serious push to get single-nature Christologies
included in the scope of orthodoxy, and the emperor Justinian was keen to
make peace with these groups from the East.49 Though the monophysite
effort did not succeed in getting single-nature language incorporated into
the ecumenical tradition, Constantinople II does make some much needed
strides toward ridding ecumenical Christology of its Nestorian tendencies.
The Christology that eventually emerges from this is often called “neo-
Chalcedonian.” It is this Christology that is adopted by the Council of Con-
stantinople II, and has left a huge mark on the way subsequent generations of
Christians have thought about the incarnation. Most Christology today is not
in fact Chalcedonian because it bears the marks of the much needed clarifica-
tions that neo-Chalcedonian Christology developed.
One of the most important developments during this time period for this
discussion is the anhypostasia and enhypostasia distinction. This is a distinc-
tion that developed in the aftermath of Chalcedon leading up to the Fifth Ecu-
menical Council. Though the terms anhypostasia and enhypostasia are not
used by the Council, the theology is adopted and affirmed by the Fifth Ecu-
menical Council as the proper interpretation of Chalcedonian Christology.50
The deep concern to avoid saying that there were two sons, or two per-
sons, in the incarnation is one issue that led to the development of the an/
enhypostasia distinction. The Fifth Ecumenical Council took place because of
a controversy over Adoptionism, Nestorianism, and Origenism—views that
many at the time believed entailed two persons. These views seemed to entail
the possibility of the human nature of Christ being a complete, separate per-
son apart from God the Son. Hence, these views naturally fall under the Two
Sons Worry. In order to avoid the Two Sons Worry, the neo-Chalcedonian
Christology of the Council claims that the human nature of Christ cannot
have a hypostasis (person) of its own. Christ’s human nature is anhypostasis,
thus avoiding the Two Sons Worry.51 The hypostasis of the Son is brought
to the assumed human nature thus giving the human nature a hypostatic and
personal reality.52
This en/anhypostasia distinction needs some unpacking because it gets
a bit muddled in contemporary discussions due to the mutually confirming
nature of each claim.53 The enhypostasia claim is that the Son’s human nature
only exists because of the incarnation. The anhypostasia claim seems to con-
tain two conditions. First, the Son’s human nature would not have existed if
it were not for the incarnation. This is incredibly similar to the enhypostasia
claim, but anhypostasia adds a further condition. The second condition is
that the human nature is only personal because it is assumed by a divine
164 R. T. Mullins
person—namely, God the Son. In other words, the Son brings His person-
hood to the assumed human nature. The human nature is not, nor could have
been, a person independent of the Son’s assumption.54
Fred Sanders explains that this is where the strength of the distinction
comes into play in ridding ecumenical Christology of Nestorianism. It
excludes the very possibility that the human nature of Christ could have
formed some person from coming into existence if the Son had not assumed
this nature.55 The human nature of Christ cannot form a person apart from the
incarnation. The human nature is only a person because it is assumed by the
person of the Logos. The human nature only exists because of the incarnation.
Wolfhart Pannenberg sums up the neo-Chalcedonian theology as follows:
“By itself Jesus’ humanity would not only be impersonal in the modern sense
of lacking self-conscious personality, but taken by itself Jesus’ human being
would be non-existent.”56
I must emphasize that the en/anhypostasia distinction is a constraint on
Christological theorizing. Nothing about this constraint, by itself, gives us
an actual Christological model. This constraint gives us a way to test Chris-
tological models for any underlying Nestorian tendencies. If a model cannot
satisfy this constraint, it is not up to the task of satisfying the Christological
desiderata listed above.
THE TWO SONS WORRY REVISITED
Now that we have the anhypostasia and enhypostasia distinction before us,
I will return to the Two Sons Worry. In this section, I shall examine some
further Christological problems for the dualist, turning then to articulate a
way for the dualist to escape the Two Sons Worry. I will end this section by
arguing that the physicalist cannot escape the Two Sons Worry.
Dualism and the Two Sons Worry

It might seem that the physicalist now has even more incarnational ammu-
nition against the dualist. The physicalist could argue that the standard
three-part dyothelite Christology cannot obviously satisfy the anhypostasia/
enhypostasia constraints on Christological theorizing. The Son’s human
nature could quite obviously be a complete human person without the occur-
rence of the incarnation. The Son’s human nature is a soul and a body with
its own distinct will—that is, a complete human person. In fact, certain con-
temporary proponents of this Christology readily admit that the Son’s human
nature would be a complete human person without the incarnation.57 That is
a straightforward violation of the anhypostasia/enhypostasia constraint on
Christology.58 In other words, this three-part Christology does not escape the
Two Sons Worry.
The dualist might respond in several ways. One attempt comes from Oliver
Crisp. Crisp will say that there never was a time when the human nature of
Christ existed apart from God the Son. When the Holy Spirit conceived the
human nature of Jesus in Mary’s womb, the Son joined Himself to that human
nature. So there never was a moment when the human nature existed without
being joined to the Son. The “human nature is never in a position to form a
supposit distinct from God the Son.”59 In other words, the human body and
soul that the Son assumed never had a chance to form a person distinct from
the Son.
Does this help the dualist escape the Two Sons Worry? The physicalist can
complain that this does not obviously avoid the Two Sons Worry. The move
that Crisp and others make avoids the charge of Adoptionism, but not the
Two Sons Worry. As noted earlier, Adoptionism is one Christological heresy
that often falls under the category of the Two Sons Worry. On Adoptionism,
Jesus exists for a certain stretch of time and is later united to God the Son.
In this scenario, we clearly have two persons. But what must be understood
is that Adoptionism isn’t the only way to fall victim to the Two Sons Worry.
As the Council of Constantinople II understood, all one needs to do in order
to fall subject to the Two Sons Worry is to offer a Christological model that
entails two persons in Jesus Christ.
It is instructive to note that Theodore of Mopsuestia held that Jesus “had
union with the Logos straightaway from the beginning when he was formed
in his mother’s womb.”60 This is the exact claim that Crisp wishes to make to
avoid the Two Sons Worry. However, Theodore was explicitly condemned by
the Council of Constantinople II for holding a view that entails two persons
in Christ. So, more needs to be said in order to avoid the Two Sons Worry.
The physicalist can say that the dualist is in serious trouble at this point.
She can complain that Crisp’s response is missing something important in the
en/anhypostasia constraint. The underlying intuition of the en/anhypostasia
constraint seems to be that persons are necessarily identical to themselves.
Necessarily, a person cannot exist apart from, or separate from, herself. If
P and P* could possibly exist apart from one another, then P and P* are two
different persons. On the three-part dyothelite Christology under consid-
eration, it is possible that the human soul and body of the Son could have
existed apart from the Son. It does not matter that the human nature of Christ
never got a chance to become a separate person. All that is needed to violate
the en/anhypostasia constraint is the metaphysical possibility of the human
nature being a complete human person apart from the incarnation. The three-
part dyothelite Christology makes this a very real metaphysical possibility. So
the physicalist can maintain that it violates the en/anhypostasia constraint.61
166 R. T. Mullins
There is, however, another move open to the dualist. Andrew Loke has
recently articulated an alternative version of the three-part dyothelite Chris-
tology called the Divine Preconscious Model (DPM).62 Loke’s alternative
account is, in part, motivated by the Two Sons Worry because he sees no way
for the traditional version to avoid Nestorianism. While I don’t agree with
everything in Loke’s alternative proposal, I think a strong case can be made
that his Christology can help the dualist avoid the Two Sons Worry.
On Loke’s DPM, substance dualism is assumed. Further, Loke postulates
that a mind includes the conscious and the subconscious “parts” of the soul.
(Recall that the “parts” language is being used here rather loosely.) Accord-
ing to Loke, “The conscious is that which, when it is active, exhibits a mental
condition characterized by the experience of perceptions, thoughts, feelings,
awareness of the external world and, often in humans, self-awareness.”63 He
further explains that, “the subconscious is defined as mental contents which
exist outside of consciousness.”64 The “outside” here is not to be taken liter-
ally. It means the mental content that one is not consciously aware of at a
particular time.
The subconscious can be further subdivided into the preconscious and the
unconscious. “The preconscious is defined as mental contents that are not
currently in consciousness but are accessible to consciousness by directing
attention to them.”65 This typically includes mental states of which one is
neither currently aware, nor focusing on. These are sometimes referred to as
nonoccurrent mental states. For example, I know a fair bit about heavy metal,
but there are many times throughout the day where none of this knowledge is
at the forefront of my mind. My subconscious contains all of the mental states
that I am not currently focusing on.
The unconscious is somewhat different. According to Loke, the uncon-
scious “is defined as an aspect of the mind containing repressed instincts
and their representative wishes, ideas and images that are not accessible to
direct examination.” They are not accessible to direct examination because
these are repressed within our minds. The “operation of repression prevents
the contents of the unconscious from entering either the conscious or the
preconscious.”66
With these distinctions before us, one can start to unpack the DPM account
of the incarnation. Prior to the incarnation, God the Son has/is a mind. At
the incarnation, the Son’s mind comes to include a consciousness that is
divided into, or possesses, two preconsciouses: one divine preconscious
and one human preconscious. Certain divine properties, like omniscience,
are located in the divine preconscious, thus retaining the consciousness of
the Son’s divine properties. The Son takes on various human properties by
becoming embodied in human flesh. These human properties are located in
the human preconscious and human body of the Son. In particular, the Son’s
consciousness comes to have the disposition to functionally depend upon the

brain of His newly acquired human body.67 In accordance with the above
discussion, Loke could appeal to the perichoretic binding relation between
minds and bodies. According to Loke, the result of the Son’s consciousness
being embodied is that the Son’s consciousness has the capacity to experience
physical sensations and bodily desires.68
On the DPM, Loke maintains that the Son’s mind does not contain an
unconscious because he believes that would entail the Son giving up certain
divine attributes such as omnipotence. He claims that this does not entail that
the Son has an incomplete human nature since, although an unconscious is a
common human property, it is not an essential human property.69
You might be wondering how exactly this is a three-part Christology since
the DPM only contains one mind (i.e., the Son), and one body. Isn’t that a
two-part Christology? Loke will disagree. Loke explains that “at the Incar-
nation the Logos had a consciousness (which included access to the divine
preconscious), a preconscious that had two parts (part A having the proper-
ties of divinity and part B having the properties of a human preconscious),
and a human body.”70 If I understand DPM correctly, we have one mind/one
person in the incarnation: the Son. The Son is a self-conscious being having
a preconscious that is divided into two parts: a part that contains the divine
properties, and a part that contains the human properties. This one center of
consciousness (the Son) comes to have two immaterial “parts” at the incar-
nation by having His mind divided into a divine preconscious and a human
preconscious. Further, at the incarnation, the Son acquires a physical part:
the human body.71 So, we have three parts: one divine part, one immaterial
human part, and one material human part. (It should be recalled again that
“parts” is being used loosely.)
The DPM avoids the Two Sons Worry because it only involves one person,
or one center of consciousness. Further, it can easily account for the an/enhy-
postatic constraint. The human nature of Christ simply would not count as a
full human person apart from the incarnation. The Son only divides His mind
into a divine and human preconscious at the incarnation for the purposes of
becoming human. This human preconscious of the Son cannot possibly exist
separated from the Son. Loke can concede that the human body of Jesus could
be created without an incarnation taking place, but he can easily say that this
body would not constitute a complete human person given his prior commit-
ments to dualism.
Before moving on, I must concede that Loke’s DPM has a great deal more
nuance than I can capture here. Further, the DPM might face other theological
and philosophical problems that some Christians might raise. All I can say
at this point is that the DPM provides a seemingly clear way for the dualist
to avoid the Two Sons Worry. The physicalist is thus prevented from saying
168 R. T. Mullins
that dualism falls victim to some version of Nestorianism. As I will argue, the
physicalist has no clear way to avoid the Two Sons Worry, thus leaving the
dualist in a better position on Christological grounds.
Physicalism and the Two Sons Worry

As I have noted before, the suggestion that a physicalist Christology will fall
victim to the Two Sons Worry will be surprising to most readers. This is why
I have chosen to focus my critique of physicalism on the Two Sons Worry
instead of the standard critiques of physicalist Christology.72 The world of
theology can always use more surprising discussions.
How does the physicalist fall prey to the Two Sons Worry? It does so
because a physicalist Christology violates the en/anhypostasia constraint. On
physicalism, a human person is identical to a human body. A complete human
person is a living human body. On the physicalist incarnation endorsed by
Merricks, God the Son becomes completely identical to a human body. It
seems like it is metaphysically possible for the Son’s body to exist without
the incarnation. If this body were to exist without the incarnation, it would be
a complete human person.73 The human body of Jesus would be a complete
human person without the Son. So this physicalist Christology has violated
the en/anhypostasia constraint.
How might the physicalist respond? Perhaps she will say that, given the
virgin birth, the particular body of Jesus would never have come into exis-
tence without the incarnation of the Son. She will go on to say that the very
coming into existence of this particular body is a miracle performed by the
Holy Spirit. However, I don’t find this move persuasive because it is meta-
physically possible for the Holy Spirit to perform the miracle of a virgin
birth without an incarnation. If this is a metaphysical possibility, then it is
possible that the particular body of Jesus could come into existence without
being incarnated by the Son. As such, it is a metaphysical possibility that the
particular body of Jesus be a person without the incarnation. So we still have
violated the an/enhypostasia constraint. The physicalist needs something
stronger than the mere fact that the particular body of Jesus only came into
existence with the incarnation of the Son. The physicalist will have to say that
it is metaphysically impossible for the particular body of Jesus to come into
existence without the incarnation. I’m not certain what the physicalist can
offer to explain this metaphysical impossibility, but perhaps she can come up
with some sort of story. That story remains to be told.
Without any sort of story here, the dualist now has a new reason to reject
physicalism on incarnational grounds. As noted before, the dualist already
believes that it is metaphysically impossible for an immaterial person to
become wholly identical to a physical object. Thus, the dualist can say that
physicalism makes the incarnation impossible. What I have offered is an

additional reason for the dualist to reject physicalism—that is, physicalism
cannot escape the Two Sons Worry.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I have examined the prospects for a physicalist Christology

and found it wanting. I have focused my discussion on an unexplored area for
physicalist Christology in hopes that the debate can be advanced beyond the
standard complaints against the physicalist. I have also offered a way for the
dualist to avoid complaints that a physicalist might throw her way. However,
I must confess that I have not addressed all of the complaints that a physical-
ist has against a dualist Christology. Yet I do hope that my work here has at
least helped advance the case for seeing dualism as playing an important role
in Christian theology, and perhaps placed a bit more disparagement on the
potential of physicalism for future Christian thought.
NOTES
1. Trenton Merricks, “The Word Made Flesh: Dualism, Physicalism, and the
Incarnation,” in Persons: Human and Divine, eds. Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zim-
merman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 281–300.
2. Merricks, “The Word Made Flesh,” 282.
3. Eric T. Olson, What Are We: A Study in Personal Ontology (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007), chapters 2 and 4.
5. Richard Swinburne, Mind, Brain, and Free Will (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2013), 141.
6. Swinburne, Mind, Brain, and Free Will, 141–142.
8. E. J. Lowe, “Substance Dualism: A Non-Cartesian Approach,” in The Waning
of Materialism, eds. Robert C. Koons and George Bealer (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2010), 441.
9. Charles Taliaferro and Alison J. Teply, eds., Cambridge Platonist Spirituality
(New York: Paulist Press, 2004), 17.
10. Charles Taliaferro and Stewart Goetz, A Brief History of the Soul (Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing, 2011). Swinburne, Mind, Brain, and Free Will, 173.
11. Nicole Oresme, Le Livre du ciel et du monde, ed. and trans. by Albert D.
Menut and Alexander J Denomy (London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1968),
285–289.
170 R. T. Mullins
13. Robin Le Poidevin, “The Incarnation: Divine Embodiment and the Divided
Mind,” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 68 (2011): 269–285. Richard Swin-
burne, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 102–104.
T.J. Mawson, “God’s Body,” The Heythrop Journal 47 (2006): 171–181.
14. Le Poidevin, “The Incarnation: Divine Embodiment and the Divided Mind,” 273.
15. For more on supervenience see Jaegwon Kim, Supervenience and Mind:
Selected Philosophical Essays (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
16. Leftow, “The Humanity of God,” in The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, eds.
Anna Marmodoro and Jonathan Hill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 21–22.
Robin Le Poidevin, “The Incarnation: Divine Embodiment and the Divided Mind,” 276.
17. Merricks, “The Word Made Flesh,” 296. Merricks develops an account based
on a rejection of kind essentialism. However, for a reply, see Kevin W. Sharpe, “The
Incarnation, Soul-Free: Physicalism, Kind Membership, and the Incarnation,” Reli-
gious Studies 53 (2017): 117–131.
18. I follow Swinburne’s account here. Poidevin makes some minor revisions to
this account, and Mawson’s account lacks several of the conditions.
19. Merricks, “The Word Made Flesh,” 284–287.
20. Luke Van Horn, “Merricks’ Soulless Savior,” Faith and Philosophy 27 (2010):
334.
21. Linda Zagzebski, Omnisubjectivity: A Defense of a Divine Attribute (Milwau-
kee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2013).
22. Robin Collins, “A Scientific Case for the Soul,” in Soul Hypothesis: Investiga-
tions into the Existence of the Soul, eds. Mark C. Baker and Stewart Goetz (New York:
The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc., 2011).
23. Van Horn, “Merricks’ Soulless Savior,” 335.
24. For discussion on the differences in the Trinity and the incarnation, see my The
End of the Timeless God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 176–179.
25. John Anthony McGuckin, ed., The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theol-
ogy (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 260.
26. McGuckin, Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology, 260.
27. Mullins, The End of the Timeless God, 156–194.
28. Crisp, “Incarnation,” in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology, eds.
John Webster, Kathryn Tanner, and Iain Torrance (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2007), 161.
29. I will be following the taxonomy of incarnation models that Oliver Crisp uses
in Divinity and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered (New York: Cambridge
30. Anna Marmodoro and Jonathan Hill, “Composition Models of the Incarnation:
Unity and Unifying Relations,” Religious Studies 46 (2010): 469–488.
31. William Hasker, “A Compositional Incarnation,” Religious Studies
(forthcoming).
32. Thomas V. Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate (London: Cornell University
Press, 1986).
33. William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a
Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 597–613.
Garrett J. DeWeese, “One Person, Two Natures: Two Metaphysical Models of the
Incarnation,” in Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective: An Introduction to Christology,
eds. Fred Sanders and Klaus Issler (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2007),
114–152.
34. Richard Norris, ed., The Christological Controversy (Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1980), 110.
35. Oliver Crisp, “Incarnation,” in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology,
162–163.
36. John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, book III.14.
37. Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, 49ff. Also, Crisp, “Incarnation,” The Oxford
Handbook of Systematic Theology, 163.
38. Ian A. McFarland, “Willing Is Not Choosing: Some Anthropological Impli-
cations of Dyothelite Christology,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 9
(2007): 3–23.
40. Richard Paul Vaggione, Eunomius: The Extent Works (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1987), 155–157. Christopher A. Beeley, The Unity of Christ: Continuity
and Conflict in Patristic Tradition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012),
176–182.
41. Andrew Louth, “Christology in the East from the Council of Chalcedon to
John Damascene,” in The Oxford Handbook of Christology, ed. Francesca Aran Mur-
phy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 139.
42. Louth, “Christology in the East from the Council of Chalcedon to John Dama-
scene,” 139–140.
43. G. L. Prestige, Fathers and Heretics (New York: Macmillan, 1940), 239.
44. See J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London: Adam and Charles
Black Limited, 1958), 340–342.
45. Beeley, The Unity of Christ, 284.
46. Prestige, Fathers and Heretics, 269.
47. Sergius the Grammarian, for example, in Christology After Chalcedon:
Severus of Antioch and Sergius the Monophysite, ed. Iain Torrance (Norwich, UK:
The Canterbury Press Norwich, 1988), 144.
48. Fred Sanders, “Introduction to Christology: Chalcedonian Categories for the
Gospel Narrative,” in Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective, eds. Fred Sanders and Klaus
Issler (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2007), 27–35.
49. Beeley, The Unity of Christ, 294.
50. Richard Price, The Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553 with Related
Texts on the Three Chapters Controversy, vol. 1 (Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University
Press, 2009), 73. Fred Sanders, “Introduction to Christology: Chalcedonian Catego-
ries for the Gospel Narrative,” 30.
51. Demetrios Barthrellos, Byzantine Christ: Person, Nature, and Will in the
Christology of Saint Maximus the Confessor (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005), 34–35.
52. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 1974), 84–85, 88–89.
172 R. T. Mullins
53. Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 84. Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, 74.
54. David Brown, Divine Humanity: Kenosis and the Construction of a Christian
Theology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011), 24.
55. Fred Sanders, “Introduction to Christology: Chalcedonian Categories for the
Gospel Narrative,” 30–35.
56. Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,
1964), 338.
57. Thomas P. Flint, “The Possibilities of Incarnation: Some Radical Molinist Sug-
gestions,” Religious Studies 37 (2001): 307–320.
58. R. T. Mullins, “Flint’s ‘Molinism and the Incarnation’ is Too Radical,” Journal
of Analytic Theology 3 (2015): 109–123. R.T. Mullins, “Flint’s ‘Molinism and the
Incarnation’ is Still Too Radical—A Rejoinder to Flint,” Journal of Analytic Theology
(forthcoming).
59. Crisp, “Compositional Christology without Nestorianism,” The Metaphysics of
the Incarnation, 59. Cf. Peter Lombard, The Sentences, Book 3, Dist. 2, 3.
60. Theodore of Mopsuestia, in Norris, Christological Controversies, 117.
61. For a deeper examination of this problem for a three-part dyothelite Christol-
ogy, see my The End of the Timeless God, chapter 7.
62. Andrew Ter Ern Loke, A Kryptic Model of the Incarnation (Farnham, UK:
Ashgate, 2014).
63. Loke, A Kryptic Model, 65.
71. Loke, A Kryptic Model, 70–71.
72. Cf. Oliver Crisp, God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology (New York: T&T
Clark International, 2009), chapter 7.
73. The physicalist Glenn Andrew Peoples concedes this point. “The Mortal God:
Materialism and Christology,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological
Anthropology, eds. Joshua R. Farris and Charles Taliaferro (Farnham, UK: Ashgate,
2015), 338. Though, it should be noted that Peoples’s physicalist account of the
incarnation has some differences from Merricks’s, but on this issue, they will agree:
the human nature of Christ would be a fully functioning human person apart from the
incarnation.
Beeley, Christopher A. The Unity of Christ: Continuity and Conflict in Patristic Tra-
dition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.
Crisp, Oliver. Divinity and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered. New York:
Le Poidevin, Robin. “The Incarnation: Divine Embodiment and the Divided Mind.”
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 68 (2011): 269–285.
Loke, Andrew Ter Ern. A Kryptic Model of the Incarnation. Farham, UK: Ashgate,
2014.
Marmodoro, Anna, and Jonathan Hill, eds. The Metaphysics of the Incarnation.
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Merricks, Trenton. “The Word Made Flesh: Dualism, Physicalism, and the Incarna-
tion.” In Persons: Human and Divine, edited by Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zim-
merman. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Mullins, R. T. “Flint’s ‘Molinism and the Incarnation’ is Too Radical.” Journal of
Analytic Theology 3 (2015): 1–15.
Murphy, Francesca Aran, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Christology. Oxford, UK:
Norris, Richard. The Christological Controversy. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980.
Price, Richard. The Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553 with Related Texts
on the Three Chapters Controversy, vols. 1 and 2. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool Uni-
Sanders, Fred, and Klaus Issler. Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective. Nashville, TN:
B&H Publishing Group, 2007.
Chapter 9
Physicalism and the Death of Christ

Charles Taliaferro
“God is dead.” Such a claim has been made by various philosophers to broad-
cast shockingly what they believed to be the erosion of theism in European
culture, but what is even more shocking is the classical, enduring Christian
belief that Jesus of Nazareth, fully God and fully human, actually died—
literally. It is not surprising that there are dynamic changes in the history of
religion and culture; religious traditions flourish, sometimes atrophy, and then
die out or undergo revitalization, reformation, or revival. But how could it be
that Jesus as God (the second Person in the imperishable, everlasting, uncre-
ated Triune Godhead) die? The phrase “God is dead,” as used by Hegel and
Nietzsche (among others), describes a comparatively prosaic, nonmysterious
shift in Europe compared to the utterly mysterious, bold, confident Christian
claim that Jesus qua God and man died.
Other chapters in this volume address physicalism and the life of Jesus
Christ. It is impossible, however, to address the death of Christ in this chap-
ter without some reflection on His life. So, with an apology for any overlap,
this chapter begins with contrasting physicalist and dualist accounts of the
incarnate life of Jesus of Nazareth. Section two compares physicalist and
dualist accounts of the death of human persons. Section three examines the
advantage of dualism in addressing a traditional belief about the death of
Jesus. I propose that dualists are in a better position in accounting for belief in
the harrowing of hell (the descent of Christ into hell or the Descensus Christi
ad inferos), as affirmed in the Apostles’ Creed with some scriptural support
(1 Peter 3:19–20 and Eph. 4:9). Reasons are advanced as to why this tradi-
tional belief may be both credible and convey theologically a vital Christian
truth: God’s loving, redeeming power is stronger than death.
175
176 Charles Taliaferro
THE METAPHYSICS OF GOD INCARNATE
There are many forms of physicalism today. For present purposes, I assume
that the most radical version of physicalism—one that denies the existence
of mental states (conscious awareness, subjective experience, beliefs, and
desires)—is not only in tension with the evident fact of consciousness, it is so
profoundly dismissive of the Christian worldview that it can offer little con-
structive material for Christian philosophers and theologians.1 That said, one
might radically reinterpret Christianity as advancing a way of life or a set of
powerful metaphors to live by, without any metaphysical commitments (that
is, commitments to the reality of, say, God). But if we keep with traditional
Christian teaching, more moderate forms of physicalism are preferable, such
as those that acknowledge the reality of consciousness, beliefs, desires, and
so on, but identify these with bodily states, processes, or properties that we
have as physical, living human animals.
One of the challenges facing nonreductive or moderate physicalism is how
to square the belief that Jesus of Nazareth (the physical, embodied person or
animal) can be in any way identical with the incorporeal second Person of the
Trinity. If you accept the idea that the second Person of the Trinity exists prior
to the existence of the body of Jesus of Nazareth, it seems that you are com-
mitted to there being two distinct realities (the second Person of the Trinity
and the body of Jesus). According to what philosophers refer to as Leibniz’s
law or the law of the indiscernibility of identicals, identity relations entail
that if A is B, then whatever is true of A is true of B. If it is true that Jesus of
Nazareth (the physical animal or his animal body) came into being in the first
century, and Jesus of Nazareth is the second Person of the Trinity, then the
second Person of the Trinity came into being in the first century. Arguably,
this would be preposterous. Such an outcome may well motivate physicalist
Christians to adopt a “lower Christology.” Some, for example, have contended
that the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth should be understood as the affective,
conscious identity of Jesus and God. In this chapter, though, I will be primar-
ily addressing the high Christology found in the Chalcedonian Creed.
Does substance dualism do any better? I think the answer is “yes,” but
before making that point, allow me to offer a brief account of what I believe
to be the most plausible form of substance dualism.
Critics long have proposed that substance dualism offers us an excessively
bifurcated understanding of the soul (or mind or person) and the body. Dual-
ists are caricatured as supposing that the soul is a ghost inhabiting its body.
If dualism is true, you never observe persons, only their containers. The
soul is actually some immaterial, ethereal mind attached to the body. On the
contrary, I defend a form of integrative dualism according to which in nor-
mal, healthy conditions the person and body function as a singular reality.2
Physicalism and the Death of Christ 177
To see me and to heal my wound and for us to share a meal is for us to interact
without making any metaphysical distinction between person and body. Inte-
grative dualism rejects the caricatures of dualism one finds in, for example,
the following portrayal of dualism by Peter van Inwagen:
If dualism is true, our relation to our bodies is analogous to the relation of
the operator of a remotely controlled device . . . to that device. Now consider
Alfred, who is operating a model airplane by remote control. Suppose that
something . . . strikes a heavy blow to the model in midair . . . the blow will
have no effect on Alfred, or no effect beyond his becoming aware of its effects
on the performance of the model and his ability to control it.3
The above scenario is perhaps intended to be comic, but as a serious engage-

ment with contemporary dualism it is not successful. Dualists do not posit
anything like a remote relation between person and body. To shoot my body
is to shoot me or, to use a more pleasant example, to kiss my face, is to kiss
me. The very idea of the soul as Alfred, standing some distance away from
his controlled device might accurately be an illuminating way to describe
the way some persons are able to emotionally “distance” themselves from
their bodily states (for example, engaging in “mind control” to ignore or to
mentally block wounds that would normally create great pain), but this is not
the normal state of affairs. When I am wounded, the feelings involved are not
“remote.” My body is not even vaguely like a remote model airplane; it is
more like a pilot in an actual airplane, struggling to control her thinking and
reactions to having her airplane being struck by antiaircraft fire.
I have argued for dualism elsewhere involving two lines of reasoning,
both arguments involving cases wherein the unity of person and body comes
apart. In one argument, often called the “knowledge argument,” if a person is
identical with their body, then to know all about their body would be to know
all about them. But if we restrict ourselves to what we can know about their
body to only physical properties (anatomy, the nervous system, the brain, and
so on), we would only know about a person’s conscious states if we could
correlate what we know physically with what the subject reports about their
experiences.4 The argument employs Leibniz’s law and I refer you elsewhere
for its development, the formulation of objections, and replies. The second is
a modal argument, as it refers to different possibilities or modes that dualism,
but not physicalism, can account for. I have argued for the reasonability of
believing that persons can exist without their physical bodies, and vice versa.
One’s physical body cannot exist without itself, so reasonably believing in
the bare possibility of a person existing without their body (surviving death,
for example) would be a reason to believe in the nonidentity of person and
body. Like the knowledge argument, this one faces lots of objections, which
I have addressed elsewhere.5 Let us return to the topic of the incarnation.
Because dualists uphold the strict nonidentity of person and body, they are
not committed to believing that the second Person of the Trinity is numeri-
cally identical with the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Nor do they believe that,
strictly speaking, the person Jesus is numerically identical with his body.
What is open to dualists is to contend that in the incarnation, the second Per-
son of the Trinity became embodied as a finite human being. Embodiment
involves coming to be so causally sustained and shaped by a human body,
that the person and boy function as a single being. In the incarnation, the
person Jesus breathes with his lung, feels by means of his nervous system and
brain, is nourished by food, sees with his eyes, hears with ears, smells with
his nose, retains his balance with proprioception, and undergoes events and
acts in and as the functional unity of Jesus qua embodied person. Contra van
Inwagen, this embodiment involves taking on fully the many ways in which
our mental states are intertwined with our physical sates (my intentionally
shaking your hand is a single, unified event) and vice versa (a blow to my
head is an injury to me as a conscious, embodied person, and my abusing
alcohol is my abusing the integrity of my embodiment). Contrast an inte-
grative dualist portrait of the incarnation with what van Inwagen proposes
dualists offer us.
What effects should dualism lead us to expect from a blow to the body? . . . The
blow at the base of Alfred’s skull that in fact produces unconsciousness should,
according to dualism, produce the following effect on Alfred: he experiences a
sharp pain at the base of his skull; he then notes that his body is falling to the
floor and that it no longer responds to his will; his visual sensations and the pain
at the base of his skull and all of the other sensations he has been experiencing
fade away; and he is left, as it were, floating in darkness, isolated, but fully con-
scious and able to contemplate his isolated situation. . . . Here is another wrong
prediction: if dualism were correct, we should expect that the ingestion of large
quantities of alcohol would result in a partial or complete loss of motor control
but leave the mind clear.6
This portrait of dualism seems wide of the mark with respect to ourselves, and
would leave us with a fragmentary view of the incarnation. Why wouldn’t
a dualist allow that Alfred falls to the floor, rather than Alfred simply not-
ing “that his body is falling to the floor”? Why wouldn’t the dualist refer to
Alfred as being motionless, rather than observing that his body no longer
is responsive to his will? Why expect that, if dualism is true, Alfred would
have serene (floating?) consciousness after a head trauma? And why on
earth would dualists expect alcohol not to cloud or even destroy a person’s
conscious life? To put the integrative dualist position in succinct terms: inte-
grative dualism understands you and I, and Jesus of Nazareth, as profoundly
different from Alfred.
Regarding the incarnation, I accept what may be called the life within a
life model of the incarnation. Our lives can be highly complex and conflicted;
we can play different roles separately or simultaneously; we can sometimes
dedicate ourselves to living one life within a greater overall life. For example,
as a professor I may have a niece as a student. As Uncle Charles I have known
her and loved her from birth, but as her professor, I need to see, act, and be
with her as one among, say, a hundred students whom I care for passionately
but equally and not showing my niece any preferential regard. My life as a
professor would be taking place within my broader life as Charles. This may
seem like “role playing,” but to see that this kind of life within a life can be
not a kind of game, consider severe cases in which there are very real, perhaps
even life-threatening conditions. Imagine, as a dedicated physician you are
the only one who can aid a patient whom you personally detest; he betrayed
your friendship and was cruel to those you love. You are, however, the only
one in a hospital who can save him from certain death from wounds inflicted
by criminals. We can imagine how in those circumstances, you might well
feel (and be) obliged to concentrate solely on rescuing him. While not deny-
ing your broader understanding of his character and history, you may well
(admirably) set it to one side to do what you are bound to do as a doctor.
Cases like that can be multiplied in which the life within one’s life actually
costs you your life. Imagine a similar case in which you, as a firefighter,
are ethically obliged to rescue a person in a fire and die in the process, even
though you (as a person) believe the person you rescued is deplorable from a
moral point of view. According to the life within a life model, God the Son
as not-incarnate retains the divine attributes of omniscience, omnipotence,
omnipresence, necessary existence, essential goodness, and yet dedicates Its
life to become the One who lives the life of Jesus of Nazareth, living under
conditions of ignorance yet with the ability to grow in knowledge and aware-
ness; limited power yet with the ability to grow in efficacy; and living in
functional unity with a contingent body with all the dignity and frailty that
involves.7 The life within a life model does not require dualism; it is open to
some Christian physicalists, but it comports well with a dualist anthropology.
Does this dualist account of the incarnation fall short of what traditional
Christians believe about the authenticity and fullness of the humanity of Jesus
Christ? After all, when I finish teaching as a professor I can step away from
that role and resume my personal life, whereas you and I cannot step away
from our role as being the human beings that we are. I suggest that one of
the ways to flesh out the dualist understanding of the fullness of the human-
ity of Jesus Christ is to take note that the incarnation is so thorough that not
only did Christ experience the agonizing suffering involved in the tortuous
flogging and crucifixion, but he actually died. Arguably Christ could have
stepped away from this passion and death (as we see in the narrative of the
Garden of Gethsemane), but He did not. One way to stress the robust nature
of the incarnation, from a dualist perspective, is to once again contrast it with
van Inwagen’s Alfred. The New Testament gives no hint that the second
Person of the Trinity would be like Alfred controlling his body as though it
were some remote model airplane. The blows to Jesus’s body are naturally
understood to be blows to him. On the cross, when Jesus is given sour wine
to drink, we are to imagine this to involve as real a bodily exchange as any
we undergo.
Before turning to the death of Christ, let us reflect on the philosophy of
the death of human persons and the prospects of physicalism and dualism.
While this first section raised a prima facie problem for physicalism from the
standpoint of traditional Christology, I shall not assume it is decisive at this
stage of our inquiry. Apart from adopting a lower Christology, another option
for the physicalist would be to adopt Lynn Baker’s constitutional account of
persons.8 On her view, you are not identical with your physical body, but you
are constituted by it. Identity relations are symmetrical (if A is B, B is A), but
the constitution relationship is not (if A is constituted by B, it does not follow
that B is constituted by A). If the statue of David is constituted by (that is, the
statue is made up of) marble, it does not follow that the marble is made up of
the statue of David. So, going back to the problem facing physicalism, on the
constitution account, you may hold that the second Person of the Trinity came
to be constituted by the living animal body which comes to form the unified,
embodied person, Jesus of Nazareth. I only mention this as a possible position
available to physicalists. I personally think that Baker’s account, when fully
worked out, entails (or, as it were, teeters on the brink of) what I am referring
to as integrative dualism, but that is a matter for another occasion.
THE DEATH OF HUMAN PERSONS
In approaching this topic we confront a major difference between some

(but not all) physicalists and some (but not all) dualists. Some physicalists
contend that we have a problem-free understanding of what is physical. We
know that animals, plants, and planets are physical. The physical world is
what is revealed in the physical sciences. I am not so sure these claims are
straightforward or survive close inspection. What is it to be an animal? When
it comes to human animals, should we count ideas, thoughts, feelings, tastes,
and sounds as just as recognizable as cells? When you examine a human’s
brain, do you thereby (ipso facto) examine a person’s thinking or is the think-
ing some additional activity? As for the sciences, I propose that you cannot
have any physical science, or any science at all, without scientists. And
scientists are individual persons, subjects of experience who reason, think,
devise theories, carry out experiments, argue with each other in laboratories
and conferences, and so on. These involve highly complex, purposive, men-
tal or psychological intentions.9 Rather than seek to develop a lucid or strict
demarcation of what should count as physical, I suggest a different move,
one that does not beg the question against physicalism but one that does give
some initial advantage to dualism. I propose that whether or not we are thor-
oughly physical, we should recognize that what we can be most sure about is
the reality of ourselves as individual persons who think, reason, have ideas,
feel pleasure and pain, act, speak, and so on. This is sometimes referred to as
the first-person point of view. It is perhaps most vividly brought to light when
you contemplate that one day, you will die. This is not just a realization that
someone or other will die or an awareness that some animal somewhere will
die, or in my case, a realization that Charles Taliaferro will die, but a realiza-
tion that I myself will die.10
Many physicalists do not recognize the primacy of the first-person point of
view. For example, some animalists (philosophers who believe that human
persons are identical with animals) propose framing the key move in philoso-
phy of mind with two equally credible assertions: the animal occupying this
chair is thinking. I am thinking. They then go on to raise this question: am
I identical with that animal? The very idea that there might be two persons
(myself as well as this animal) occupying the same space seems preposter-
ous, thus paving the way for the more plausible belief that all persons (myself
included) are identical with their animal bodies. An important reply to this
strategy is to question whether we can have as clear a conception of the ani-
mal occupying this chair is thinking as the conception that I am thinking. For
reasons suggested in section one on the knowledge argument, it is quite open
to question whether it is reasonable to believe that thinking itself is a physical
property. After all, we cannot observe a subject’s thinking in any way akin
to the way in which we can observe any of an animal’s brain, anatomical
processes, activities. I would also go further in claiming that we would have
no idea how to conceive of “this animal thinking” without a prior concept
of who we are as self-aware subjects who endure over time, have percep-
tion, sensations, and so on. When we use the indexical “this” or “that,” we
essentially mean the thing I, as a subject, am drawing (your) attention to. I
suggest that a more philosophically sound first step in forming a philosophy
of mind is to take note of the primacy of the first-person and the mental: we
are self-aware thinking subjects who endure over time, have experiences, and
so on. We can be certain, too, that we have ideas such as the idea of being
an animal, the concept of brains, cells, bodies, plants, sensations, and so on.
This, then, is a further question: Are you and I and are thinking, experienc-
ing, and so on, the very same thing as our brains, their activities, our body
as a whole, or not?
In any case, let us consider what is involved with a person dying or being
dead. For both dualists and physicalists, I assume that there would be little
dispute that a person has died when the person has undergone what may be
referred to as D: a complete cessation of all brain functions and the complete
cessation of respiratory and circulatory functions, none of which can be
reversed or restored given the (current) laws of nature. I believe D adequately
describes a case of what may be thought of as the biological death of a human
person, without having to address borderline cases (what about persons who
experience cessation of brain activity but have other biological functions such
as breathing?). So, D does not advance as an analysis of the concept of death,
but as only one, perhaps paradigmatic case of when it is (relatively) uncontro-
versial to claim that a human person is dead. So, because D is not an analysis
of what counts as a person’s death, one may readily allow that a person may
be dead even if his conditions could be reversed but simply are not. Note that
D does not explicitly refer to consciousness. Presumably, the reason why
many of us give primacy to cessation of brain activity is that this is the sign
of the loss of consciousness, but D does not explicitly require that the person
who has died has ceased to be conscious; indeed, in the next section, I suggest
that the traditional teaching about the harrowing of hell suggests that Christ
survived as a conscious subject following his biological death.
We come now to what I suggest is a problem for at least some forms of
physicalism when it comes to a philosophy of death, which has been called
the Corpse Objection. Consider the following challenge. Hypothesis: you are
the very same thing as your animal body. When you die, you cease to be. If
you are identical with your animal body, your body would cease to be when
you ceased to be. But it does not. Your body (except under conditions when
your death involves your body being annihilated) persists in being. Yes the
body is no longer living, and we may not even refer to it as you or as a person.
That is, we might prefer to say, “we buried Skippy’s corpse” or “the remains
of Skippy” as opposed to saying, “we buried Skippy.” And yet, if animalism
(the view that you are a human animal) is true, the animal still exists. Dual-
ism does not face this problem, for it does not hold that persons are either
identical to or a mode of an animal body. Because dualists hold that there is
a metaphysical distinction between person and body, they hold that (strictly
speaking) a person is neither identical with her living or dead body, though at
death dualists claim that there is a radical ceasing of the functional, healthy
unity of person and body.
Consider two ways physicalists may reply to the Corpse Objection.
Persons are modes of their animal bodies: one might concede that persons
are actually modes of their animal bodies. On this view, your animal body (at
conception, say) was not you, but it became you (when, for example, the organ-
ism reached a unified, functioning state), and at death will cease to be you.
The difficulty with this approach is that modes or phases of things do not
think, feel, experience, act, intend things, and so on. Thinking and the like are
done by substantial individuals, not the phases or modes of life in which they
pass through or obtain. Right now, I am living a phase of my life or mode of
being in which I am a professor. But my being a professor does not teach,
write, lead discussion groups, and so on. That is what I do as a professor.
Consider a second, more promising alternative. There is a version of hyle-
morphic animalism, according to which you as the living, physical animal
are a different substance from your corpse. Patrick Toner has constructed this
inventive, promising alternative. On his view, when you are alive, you are a
unified substance that has no parts as substances.
The hylemorphic account of substance tells us that any substance will have one
and only one substantial form. This means that substances like you and me are
not made out of littler substances like cells or atoms. It does not mean that you
and I have no cells or atoms as parts. Sure we do. They’re just not substances.
We have no substances as parts: that doesn’t mean we have no parts. It means,
rather, that if we have cells or atoms as parts, those things are not substances
while they’re our parts. They may very well be substances at times at which they
are not our parts, however.11
The reasoning is, then, that when you are alive, you are a substance that has
no substances as parts; your corpse does have substances as parts; therefore
your corpse is a different substance than your living body. Toner sees this as
not at all counter-intuitive or embarrassing but an implication of his view.
The hylemorphic animalist’s response is simple. When we die, a new body

(or new bodies) does come into existence. That’s part of what it means for
something to die. For death is a substantial change. In a substantial change, one
substance goes out of existence, and one or more new substances come into
existence. Neither the body itself, nor any of its atomic parts, existed while the
animal was alive. This just follows from the account of substance I’ve given,
according to which substances have no substances as parts—there is only one
substance here in my boundaries, and it’s an animal. When the animal dies,
whatever is left over is not the same thing that was there before. This answer to
the corpse problem simply falls out of hylemorphic animalism. It’s not a bullet
we have to bite.12
Toner rightly notes that what many of us see as death is a substantial change.
The difference between a substantial and accidental change is that in a
substantial change, you lose a substance or substantive individual, whereas
individuals persist through accidental change, as when I cease to be a phi-
losopher and become a circus clown. I think there is an admirable plausibility
in Toner’s depiction of the integration of embodiment. When healthy, we
identify our bodily parts as forming a functioning, whole organism, whereas

after we have died, our hearts, lungs, and so on, no longer function as hearts
and lungs. Changing the example to farm animals, when a pig is slaughtered
we often do regard its detachable, bodily parts as something other than the
animal from which they came (we have pork, bratwurst, and so on).
While I believe Toner’s position is ingenious and, if the overall case for
hylemorphism is plausible, the preferred solution to the Corpse Objection,
I still think it does not outweigh the positive case for dualism and its more
common-sense approach to the corpse, which is to claim that it is the very
same thing as one’s body, only it is dead. Consider “Romeo and Juliet,”
act 5, scene 3. The scene is complicated, for Romeo thinks Juliet is dead,
whereas she is not. But it would be very odd for Romeo to lament and kiss
Juliet’s dead body if he believed it to be a substance other than the body of
his beloved when she was alive.
How oft when men are at the point of death

Have they been merry, which their keepers call
A lightning before death! Oh, how may I
Call this a lightning?—O my love, my wife!
Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
Thou art not conquered. Beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advancèd there.—
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favor can I do to thee,
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin.—Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous,
And that the lean abhorrèd monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that, I still will stay with thee,
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again. Here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chamber maids. Oh, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last.
Arms, take your last embrace. And, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death.
(kisses JULIET, takes out the poison)13
The tragedy has its poignancy, I suggest, from Romeo’s mourning over what
he takes to be the body of his beloved, not a new substance. I do not advance
Romeo as a philosopher; in fact he seems rather exasperated at the limitations
of philosophy (he exclaims, “Hang up philosophy!” in act 3, scene 3). But I
suggest he does display what I think is a common-sense approach to the body
as enduring as the self-same substance after the death of a person.
I will not press the point further here. These first two sections may be
read as preliminary, raising prima facie difficulties for physicalism, but not
decisive, and laying the ground work for the alternative dualist account of
ourselves and the incarnation. I now turn to the main topic of this chapter.
THE DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST
At this stage, let us assume (if only for the sake of argument) that dualism and
physicalism are equally well placed in terms of philosophical and theological
integrity and credibility. Both can account for why the passion, tormenting,
scourging, and crucifixion led to the death of Jesus Christ. Both can account
for the interning of the body in a tomb and its remaining there from the
Sabbath to the first Easter morning when Christ rises from the dead (Luke
23:50–56). But can they both account for belief in the harrowing of hell?
Traditionally, many (but not all) Christians believe that between the cruci-
fixion and the Resurrection, Christ descends into hell (or into Sheol or Hades)
to preach to and free “imprisoned spirits” (I Peter 3:19–20). The significance
of this belief is supported by its being referenced in our records of the first
preaching by the apostles (Acts 2:24, 27, 31). According to the Catechism of
the Catholic Church, part one, section two:
The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was “raised from the dead”
presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to
his resurrection. This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching
to Christ’s descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in
his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as
Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there. Scripture
calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell”—Sheol
in Hebrew or Hades in Greek—because those who are there are deprived of the
vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while
they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as
Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into
“Abraham’s bosom”: “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior
in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into
hell.” Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the
hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him. “The gospel
was preached even to the dead.” The descent into hell brings the Gospel mes-
sage of salvation to complete fulfillment. This is the last phase of Jesus’ messi-
anic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance:
the spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for
all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.14
The belief in this descent among the dead has been powerfully represented in
Christian iconography (in Resurrection icons used in the Orthodox Church,
when Christ rises from the dead, He brings with Him Adam, Eve, Moses,
and others) and in the Christian imagination (Charles Williams’s novel, The
Descent Into Hell).
Belief in the harrowing of hell is a belief in the awesome power of God to
overcome the enthralling, tyrannical power of death. It essentially professes
that after the death of Christ, Christ himself, prior to the Resurrection, shared
with deceased human persons the good news of His victory. It implies that the
saving Redeemer of the world was conscious of his immanent victory over
death and actively sought the lost. This seems to me a powerful testimony of
the limitless power of God’s redemption through the life, teaching, and even
during the death of Christ. It comports well with various scriptural passages
of how God’s love is more powerful than death (Rom. 8:38) and that even in
hell or Sheol, we cannot escape God’s love. “You will not abandon my soul
to Sheol” (Ps. 16:10).
Physicalists might well challenge whether contemporary Christians can or
should accept the descent into hell narrative historically. Why not treat the
belief figuratively or as a metaphor or parable (like the parable of the Good
Samaritan) or as a dramatic expression of the awesome love of God? After
all, we do not feel constrained to treat the dragon, beasts, and horsemen of
the Apocalypse realistically or as purported future stages of history involving
a real dragon. Besides, the language of descent into hell, like the language
of ascent into heaven, suggests a three-storied universe that we know to be
false. The idea that hell is literally below us, heaven above (among or beyond
the clouds?), while we are in the middle is not an idea that is acceptable to
modern, educated Christians.
Granted that the notion of “descent” (as in “descent into hell”) is a meta-
phor, just as it would be a metaphor when someone claims that after the
divorce, Smith descended into reckless relationships and drug use. This need
not involve a literal, spatial lowering of himself; we might even picture his
moral and spiritual descent while he (literally) is a passenger on a soaring jet.
But I do not think that modern, educated Christians need to treat as figura-
tive belief in life after this life of persons. There are ample defenses of the
coherence of life after life of persons, especially from a dualist perspective.15
And for those of us who deny the unity of space (there can be spatial objects
that are not spatially related to our world), it is not absurd to suppose there
can be indefinitely spatial worlds where there may be persons in a myriad of
sites.16 A Christian who believes God is omnipotent has a reason to think that
such worlds are not beyond the limits of God’s power to create, sustain, and
to providentially act within them. So, I do not think that the positing of such
worlds involves a metaphysical impossibility.
If we know of no reason why Christ could not act redemptively between
the crucifixion and Resurrection, then it seems that scriptural (and perhaps
creedal) testimony that He did should carry the day. It may also count as
additional reason for accepting it on the grounds that such a redemptive act is
something we would expect of the person Jesus Christ as depicted in the New
Testament accounts of His life. Scriptural references to Christ’s descent seem
very different from the dragons and beasts in Christian apocalyptic literature,
which scholars have interpreted as representing different empires such as the
Babylonian, Persian, and Roman Empires. If, on the other hand, we take the
narrative of Jesus Christ harrowing hell as a real event, we may see it as an
actual (not merely metaphorical) display of divine love. It would teach us that
not even death can conquer Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Lord of life.
Thomas Aquinas may be interpreted as depicting the death of Jesus Christ
as a severing of his soul and body that then come to be reintegrated at the
Resurrection; he thereby sees the descent into hell as itself an integral part
of Christ’s redeeming work (taking on the penalty for sin, death, freeing
captives).
As Christ, in order to take our penalties upon Himself, willed His body to be laid
in the tomb, so likewise He willed His soul to descend into hell. But the body lay
in the tomb for a day and two nights, so as to demonstrate the truth of His death.
Consequently, it is to be believed that His soul was in hell, in order that it might
be brought back out of hell simultaneously with His body from the tomb.17
I propose that between dualism and physicalism, dualism is better placed to

accept and give praise for this powerful, redeeming act. Note, too, how the
dualist account would avoid the difficulties of thinking that the dead body of
Christ is a new substance, different from his living body. On the hylemorphic
account, discussed earlier, the living body would have ceased to be at death, a
new substance come into being (the dead body), and a yet new (or recovered
and transformed) body come into being at the Resurrection. The hylemorphic
physicalist account would also face the challenge of supposing that anyone
would be in hell (or another life) requiring deliverance (given that the human
bodies of the dead are not resurrected by being dispersed throughout the
earth). In all, I suggest that integrative dualism offers a less complex, refined
philosophical framework within which to address the death of Jesus Christ.
NOTES
1. I address the problems facing eliminativism in Consciousness and the Mind of

God (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Also see A Brief History
of the Soul by Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011).
2. See my Consciousness and the Mind of God and “The Virtues of Embodi-
ment,” Philosophy 76 (2001): 111–125.
3. Peter van Inwagen, Metaphysics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), 179.
4. See “Substance Dualism” by Charles Taliaferro, The Blackwell Companion to
Substance Dualism, ed. J. J. Loose, et al. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming).
5. See “Substance Dualism” and Consciousness and the Mind of God.
6. Van Inwagen, Metaphysics, 180.
7. The life within a life model is akin to the two minds model of T. V. Morris and
Richard Swinburne.
8. See Lynn Baker, Persons and Bodies (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2000).
9. See Contemporary Philosophical Theology by Charles Taliaferro and Chad
Meister (London: Routledge, 2016), chapter 1.
10. See Lynn Baker, Naturalism and the First-Person Perspective (Oxford: Oxford
11. Patrick Toner, “Hylomorphic Animalism,” Philosophical Studies 155 (2011): 67.
12. Toner, “Hylomorphic Animalism,” 71.
13. Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet,” in The New Cambridge Shakespeare, ed. G.
Blakemore Evans (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
14. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Cincinnati, OH: Benziger Publishing Com-
pany, 1994), 164–165.
15. See William Hasker and Charles Taliaferro, “Afterlife,” The Stanford Ency-
clopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.
stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/afterlife/
16. See, for example, Richard Swinburne on space not being unified, Space and
Time (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
17. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, vol. IV, pt. III (New York: Cosimo Clas-
sics, 2007), 2299.
Baker, Lynne Rudder. Persons and Bodies. New York: Cambridge University Press,
2000.
———. Naturalism and the First-Person Perspective. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2013.
Goetz, Stewart, and Charles Taliaferro. A Brief History of the Soul. Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
Taliaferro, Charles. Consciousness and the Mind of God. New York: Cambridge
Van Inwagen, Peter. Metaphysics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993.
Chapter 10
Christian Materialism
Entails Pelagianism
Matthew J. Hart
Christian philosophy has not escaped the influence of the current materialist
paradigm, and consequently many Christian philosophers are materialists.
Peter van Inwagen,1 Hud Hudson,2 Lynne Rudder Baker,3 Nancey Murphy,4
and Trenton Merricks5 are notable examples. In this chapter, I argue that
Christian philosophers should not be materialists, because such a commit-
ment is in tension with, among other things, the church’s condemnation of
Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism.
But what is materialism? Materialism might mean many things, but it
nearly always at least means this: that the mental supervenes on the physical
with a force that is at least as strong as that of nomological necessity. Now,
if a Christian is a materialist, then he will of course be a local materialist: a
materialist about human beings. The Christian cannot be a global materialist
because, even if he is sufficiently liberal to reject the existence of angels and
demons, he will nevertheless believe that there is at least one immaterial mind
that operates quite independently of the physical world, namely God’s.6 So,
we can formulate the Christian materialist’s supervenience claim as follows:
(CM) Human mental properties supervene on human physical properties.
How is the supervenience relation to be understood? I think it must be at least

as strong as this:
(N) For any human mental property M, it is nomologically necessary that if any
human individual x has M at time t, then there exists a physical (subvenient)
property P such that x has P at t, and it is nomologically impossible for any
human individual to have P at a time and lack M at that time.7
189
190 Matthew J. Hart
Some materialists might claim that the connection between the physical and
the mental is closer than that described in (N). They may make the stronger
claim that the impossibility in question is metaphysical, not merely nomo-
logical. Call this claim (M).8 It will not be necessary for me to deal with (M)
explicitly, because any reason to reject (N) will also be a reason to reject (M),
for (M) entails (N) (though the converse is false).
So Christian materialists will subscribe (at least) to (N) and also, I shall
assume, adhere to Christian doctrine in a manner that is sufficiently conserva-
tive such that they will agree with the church’s condemnation of Pelagianism
and Semi-Pelagianism. It is therefore a commitment to (N) that I intend to
show is in tension with the church’s condemnation of those views. Along the
way, I will also make two additional arguments: (i) that Christian materialism
makes possible an unhealthy approach to evangelism, and (ii) that Christian
materialism has untoward consequences for the security of the believer.
PELAGIANISM AND SEMI-PELAGIANISM
But what are Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism? Pelagianism was at its peak
around the beginning of the fifth century AD. Warfield describes the “central
and formative principle of Pelagianism” as “the assumption of the plenary
ability of man; his ability to do all that righteousness can demand—to work
out not only his own salvation, but also his own perfection.”9 This central
claim that it is possible for a merely human being, of his own free will, by
sheer dint of effort, to secure his own salvation, or to live a sinless life, led to
two other claims from the Pelagians.
The first concerned original sin. It was supposed by many at that time that
Adam’s sin had so affected his progeny that they now labored under a great
corruption of nature and weakness of will that amounted to an inability, rela-
tive to man’s natural powers, to choose the good. Such a view was in obvi-
ous contradiction to Pelagian doctrine. Accordingly, they supposed that the
effect Adam had on his posterity was not transmission of a corrupt nature, but
merely that of a bad exemplar: “they denied that Adam’s sin had any further
effect on his posterity than might arise from his bad example.”10
The second concerned the nature of grace. They denied that any super-
natural grace from God was necessary for salvation or for holiness. Given
their supposition of the full and complete ability of man to live righteously,
it was a natural consequence that they supposed that whatever grace came
from God to help man live a holy life came in the form of external and
natural aids, such as Scripture, the encouragement of the brethren, and the
supreme example of the holy life of the Lord Jesus Christ. As Warfield puts
it, “they meant by ‘grace’ the primal endowment of man with free will, and
Christian Materialism Entails Pelagianism 191
subsequent aid given him in order to its proper use by the revelation of the
law and the teaching of the gospel, and, above all, by the forgiveness of past
sins in Christ and by Christ’s holy example. Anything beyond this external
help they utterly denied.”11 There was no need for any internal renovation, no
need for any supernatural rolling back of the native darkness and depravity of
the human mind—once the relevant information was understood, the natural
capacities of the person were by themselves quite up to the task of holy liv-
ing. According to Warfield, “Pelagius consistently denied both the need and
the reality of divine grace in the sense of an inward help (and especially of a
prevenient help) to man’s weakness,” instead holding that “man has no need
of supernatural assistance in his striving to obey righteousness.”12
Pelagianism was condemned at the Council of Carthage in 418 AD and at
the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD.
Semi-Pelagianism then sprang up. Semi-Pelagianism is the view that although
it is not possible for a man, of his own natural powers and without divine aid,
either to secure his salvation or to live a sinless life, yet it is possible for a man
to initiate the process of faith by virtue of his natural powers alone, and in this
manner to appropriate the divine aid necessary for living a holy life. In other
words, although the sin of Adam did damage his progeny, this damage was not
so great that it prevented them from calling out to God of their own power.
Semi-Pelagianism was condemned by the Second Council of Orange in
529 AD.
I wish to focus on the condemnations of this council, taking them as
normative in what follows. It is meet to do so, since the council carries
an ecumenical appeal: Roman Catholics appeal to it in their rejection of
Semi-Pelagianism (Pope Boniface II gave his papal commendation of the
council);13 and the Reformed approve of it also, perceiving in the council’s
declarations a strong doctrine of original sin, human inability, and the neces-
sity of grace that antedated their own later emphasis on these matters. As we
shall see, the canons of the Second Council of Orange are extensive in their
claims about mankind’s native inability to do good and be righteous.
Now, it is true that I intend to show that Christian materialism does not
merely imply Semi-Pelagianism, but full-blown Pelagianism, and therefore
more needs to be done than to show that Christian materialism is at odds with
the council. But it should become plain when my arguments are presented
that they commit the Christian materialist to Pelagianism and not merely
Semi-Pelagianism.
Here follows a representative sample of the declarations of this council.
Canons 3–5 insist that grace from God must precede praying, willing, and
the initial stages of having faith. Canon 6 tries to leave no room for escape,
broadening matters by listing yet more items that cannot occur without God’s
help.
192 Matthew J. Hart
CANON 6. If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his
grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or
knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy
Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these
things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the
humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself
that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle.
In case that list was not broad enough, canon 7 generalizes the point to con-
cern anything that relates in a positive way to salvation:
CANON 7. If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any
right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us,
or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through
our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by
a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God.
Finally, here is a brief excerpt from the conclusion of the council:
The sin of the first man has so impaired and weakened free will that no one
thereafter can either love God as he ought or believe in God or do good for
God’s sake, unless the grace of divine mercy has preceded him.14
So, according to the Second Council of Orange, whatever else may lie
within man’s natural powers, the power to seek after salvation is not one of
them. For that, supernatural intervention is required, as canons 6 and 7 show
with their emphasis on the necessity of the Holy Spirit’s prior working. The
council also claims this inability is a consequence of “the sin of the first man,”
and in this way, affirms a strong view of original sin.
But how can we summarize the central contention of this council? A good
stab at that might be what I shall call INABILITY:
INABILITY: All good acts that relate to salvation, and all good mental states
relating to salvation, are beyond man’s natural powers (post-Eden) to perform
or bring about—supernatural aid is required for such things.15
This rules out both Semi-Pelagianism, which we might characterize as being

the denial of INABILITY, namely ABILITY. It also rules out Pelagianism,
which we might characterize as implying FULL ABILITY.
ABILITY: It is not the case that all good acts that relate to salvation, and all
good mental states relating to salvation, are beyond man’s natural powers
(post-Eden) to perform or bring about—supernatural aid is not required for at

least one such thing.16
FULL ABILITY: To meet conditions (whether states or acts) sufficient for sal-
vation, is within man’s natural powers (post-Eden) to perform or bring about—
supernatural aid is not required for these things.
To agree with FULL ABILITY, I shall suppose, is to be Pelagian, and to dis-

agree with FULL ABILITY but agree with ABILITY is to be a semi-Pelagian
of some description.
I want to begin the central argument of my chapter by discussing faith. I
wish to discuss other aspects of Christian soteriology as well, but I begin with
faith because it offers the fuller discussion and also enables me to introduce
the argument from the security of the believer. We can see how the place of
faith relates to the foregoing discussion by noting that INABILITY implies
FAITH, defined as follows.
FAITH: Coming to faith in Christ is beyond man’s natural powers (post-Eden)

to perform or bring about—supernatural aid is required for that.
I shall argue that Christian materialism implies the falsity of FAITH, and
therefore of INABILITY, and therefore that the Christian materialist, whether
he realizes it or not, is adrift in Pelagian waters.
FAITH
Faith is of course of prime importance in Christian soteriology. Salvation,

on the Christian scheme, requires it. Indeed, Protestants tend to say that the
possession of faith is not only necessary but sufficient for salvation, while
Catholics demur, thinking that baptism and good works (or the disposition
to such) are also required. Therefore, if we assume that the Christian mate-
rialist is a Protestant, then he will hold to the sufficiency of faith at death
for salvation:
(F1) For any human individual, if that individual instantiates faith at the moment
of his death, then that individual dies saved.
With regard to the necessity of faith for salvation, the following proposition
invites acceptance from both Catholics and Protestants.
(F2) For any human individual, only if that individual instantiates faith at the
moment of his death does that individual die saved.17
194 Matthew J. Hart
It might be thought that a Calvinist, and therefore an adherent of the doc-

trine of the perseverance of the saints (“once saved, always saved”), might be
inclined to deny (F2) because he may construe that portion of his theology as
the following claim:
(F3) For any human individual, if that individual instantiates faith at any
moment in his life, then that individual dies saved.
This claim is consistent with people lacking faith at death and nevertheless
entering heaven. But I think (F3) is too weak a claim for the Calvinist to
accept as a full statement of the doctrine. I believe most Calvinists also would
hold that an enduring faith is the means by which God secures the persever-
ance of his saints such that
(F4) For any human individual, if that individual instantiates faith at any
moment in his life, then that individual will instantiate faith at all times from
that moment until his death.18
So, I take it that the Calvinist is also motivated to hold (F2).

Now, faith is a mental state (it is a trust or a belief or an inner perception
or some such thing), and so Christian materialists—those who subscribe to
(N)—will claim that faith states supervene on physical states, more precisely,
surely, on brain states. So, from (N) and (F1) we can therefore derive (B1),
where B1 is a reasonably determinate type of brain state.
(B1) For any human individual, if that individual instantiates B1 at the moment
of his death, then that individual dies saved.
This is derived as follows. Take any individual with faith. Given (N) there
will be a subvenient physical property—this we can presume to be a neural
property of some sort—that is such that whenever that property is instanti-
ated, then faith is also instantiated. Call this property B1 and the truth of (B1)
is secured.
But note that no parallel reasoning secures the truth of (B2).
(B2) For any human individual, only if that individual instantiates B1 at the
moment of his death does that individual die saved.
This is so because (N) is compatible with the multiple realizability of mental

states—(N) says it is nomologically impossible to have P without M, but it
doesn’t say it is impossible to have M without P. So, there might be many
ways to bring about the instantiation of some mental state M1: perhaps each
of the physical states P1, P2, or P3 could individually do the job. Because the
subvenient property doesn’t have to be the same every time, there may be
many types of brain state that bring about faith. But we can say this: take all
of the brain states the individual presence of which is nomologically suffi-
cient for faith, gather them into a set {B1, B2, B3 . . . Bx}, and call this set Sb.
Then our Christian materialist appears committed to the truth of (B3).
(B3) For any human individual, only if that individual instantiates one of the
members of Sb at the moment of his death does that individual die saved.
Crucially, the Christian dualist is not committed to (B1) and (B3). Although
he is committed to (F1) and (F2), he is not committed to (N): the dualist need
not think there are any brain states which only occur when faith occurs—
he can believe that faith states and brain states vary independently of one
another. It is this ability to evade (B1) and (B3) which, I believe, gives him
significant theological advantage.
Accepting (N) is necessary to be a materialist, and rejecting (N) is suf-
ficient to be a dualist. However, rejecting (N) is not necessary for dualism.
David Chalmers is an example of a property dualist who accepts (N).19
Although he rejects (M), he thinks there are contingent psychophysical
laws which guarantee the nomological supervenience of conscious states
on certain states of functional organization.20 But the arguments of this
chapter tell against any sort of view, dualist or materialist, that implies
(N). I also believe that, if these arguments are sound, then they show that
the Christian should be a substance dualist. But I shall postpone discussion
of what sort of dualism is required until all the relevant evidence has been
laid out.
NEUROSCIENCE
What is the problem with the Christian materialist believing (B1) and (B3)?
How does that commitment issue in a Pelagian conclusion? I will illustrate
how with two scenarios: Chance and Design.
Chance: I slap a fellow in the face. The molecules that I strike are arranged
in such a way that the perturbations I cause to this man’s face continue to
have an effect upon his brain. Moreover, the neural structure of this man’s
brain is arranged in such a way that when it encounters these perturbations it
is altered by them such that one of the members of Sb comes to be instanti-
ated. In this way, I cause another man to have faith without divine aid. To
be sure, this is doubtless exceedingly improbable, but that is not the point:
there is no reason to think that such an occurrence is impossible on materialist
assumptions, and therefore no reason to think supernatural aid is necessary.
196 Matthew J. Hart
But then FAITH is false, and the Christian materialist has fallen afoul of the
church’s condemnation of Pelagian thought.
Design: Neuroscience is a field that has proceeded in leaps and bounds, and
the tools employed are increasingly sophisticated. If materialism is true, then
with greater knowledge and understanding of the brain comes the prospect
of discovering some or all of the subvenient bases of faith states—some or
all of the neural structures contained in Sb. Indeed, neuroscientists already
have set their eyes on such a prize. The discipline of neurotheology is a dis-
cipline devoted precisely to discovering and understanding the neurological
underpinnings of religious belief and experience.21 Furthermore, surely not
far from this discovery will be the ability artificially to bring about some of
these states. So, suppose a neuroscientist discovers some of these states in the
future. You are an unbeliever and he offers to alter your brain for you. He will
perform an operation that changes your brain such that you come to instanti-
ate one of the members of Sb. Or perhaps the technology has advanced so
far that nothing so invasive as an operation is necessary; perhaps you merely
have to sit under a scanner, or just swallow a pill containing tiny robots that
will do all the required brain alteration, if mere chemicals are insufficient.
Such a neuroscientist would, if materialism is true, have the power to bring
about faith, and therefore something would lie within his natural powers that
is supposed to be the exclusive purview of God. Again, FAITH is false in
such a case.
It does not follow straightaway from the Christian materialist’s being
committed to the falsity of FAITH, and therefore of INABILITY, that he
is committed to Pelagianism, though it does follow that he is committed to
Semi-Pelagianism (as I have defined it). However, if he is a Protestant, and
therefore committed to the sufficiency of faith for salvation (F1), then it will
follow that his commitment to the possibility of faith without divine aid com-
mits him to FULL ABILITY, the full Pelagian belief that it is possible for
man to meet conditions sufficient for salvation without divine aid. What if
the Christian materialist is a Catholic? But even then we can suppose, using
parallel reasoning, that the neuroscientist has developed the capacity to bring
about whatever other psychological elements Catholics believe are necessary
for salvation (a desire to be baptized, a disposition to good works, etc.), and
again FULL ABILITY will follow.
It is the great advantage of the dualist that by believing in the soul, or at
least denying (N), he can suppose that there is no brain state that guarantees
the presence of faith. The dualist has the luxury of supposing that it is just
as impossible for man to bring about faith as it is (currently believed to be)
for him to travel faster than light—the psychophysical laws that govern the
relationship between the physical and the mental will not permit it.
Before I move to consider objections, I would like to note that the discus-
sion has set the scene for another argument against Christian materialism.
Recall the possibility of a neuroscientist installing faith in someone. Notice
the unwelcome effects that such a possibility would have on the evangelistic
enterprise. For as soon as it were obvious that the discovery of one of the
members of Sb were not far away, it would become prudent for great swathes
of funding ordinarily the preserve of missionary outreach to go instead to
neuroscience, for as soon as a medical procedure is available to bring about
B1, say, then thousands could be converted. And if, as suggested above, the
treatment could be orally administered, and some sort of “Faith Pill” were
available, then there would be no need any more to persuade people of a
conviction of the truth of Christianity just so long as they are sufficiently
motivated to swallow a tablet. Furthermore, consent might be thought unim-
portant. The issue is of such great importance that if a faith drug could be
mixed into the drinks or meals of unbelievers then, it might be argued, it
should be done, whether they would wish it or not. Christian restaurants
might become the vehicles for great religious revivals: the hungry unbeliever
enters and orders a sandwich and coffee, only to emerge singing psalms and
making hymnody.
The bad effects Design would have for evangelistic practice are a separate
consideration, though they are a consequence of the fundamental problem
here: that Christian materialism appears to imply the possibility of salvation
taking place outside of the usual means. This issues in the possibility not only
of salvation taking place in the absence of divine aid (Pelagianism) but of it
being prudent to ignore the biblically prescribed methods of evangelism.
OBJECTION FROM LIBERTARIANISM
But there are responses that the Christian materialist might make, because
some Christian materialists are libertarians (van Inwagen is a prominent
example),22 and the libertarian may mount an objection to the possibility of
the above scenarios. He will say it is not possible to bring about another per-
son’s conversion through a neuroscientist’s surgery, making them swallow a
pill, or slapping them, because of the more general fact that it is not possible
to cause anyone’s conversion at all. Conversion requires the free response of
the prospective convert, and if the response is caused then it isn’t free.23
The libertarian might put it this way: proper conceptual analysis of faith
reveals “being freely chosen” as an essential component, in which case (F1)
and (F2) are still true although the move from them to (B1) and (B3) would
fail because (N) does not hold for mental properties that are characterized
198 Matthew J. Hart
at least in part historically. (N) holds good only when it ranges over mental
properties that are characterized purely intrinsically.
But I do not think this response helps much. We should realize that while
there is an occurrent aspect to faith, namely the decision at a time to place
one’s faith in Christ, there is also a categorical or dispositional element too:
when one places one’s faith in Christ, one’s mental configuration changes
from one state to another. What makes it the case that one is a believer in
Christ isn’t merely a decision made in the past. Rather, there are present facts
intrinsic to one that make it true that one is a believer. These intrinsic facts
will still bedevil the Christian materialist.
We might conceive of the categorical aspect of faith as a switch in the
mind. The believer’s switch was set to the “off” position before he was
converted, but when he was converted the switch was moved to the “on”
position, remaining at that position thereafter. The libertarian will insist that
it must be moved by a free decision, to be sure, but nevertheless the switch
must remain at the “on” position if one is to remain a believer—this state
must persist long after the decision to acquire it has been and gone. Then
we respond to the libertarian as follows: while it may be granted that the
neuroscientist cannot duplicate the first, occurrent, decisional aspect properly
(for the decision will not be free) there is no reason to suppose that he cannot
bring about the categorical element,24 the state of faith which persists long
after the decision has gone away, and this remains problematic.
It is problematic because INABILITY covers “all good mental states relat-
ing to salvation” and having the categorical aspect of faith is surely a most
excellent state to be in as far as salvation goes. Even though the libertarian
Christian materialist might avoid Pelagianism through libertarianism (salva-
tion cannot be secured without supernatural aid), he would not avoid Semi-
Pelagianism (a good step in the direction of salvation can be secured without
supernatural aid).
Lest anyone should think INABILITY is a stronger claim than the council
would wish to put its stamp on, I invite them to reconsider canon 6. It says:
“If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we
believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock,
but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy
Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all
these things.” Both acts and states of mind are listed here, and it is surely the
intent of the author(s) to include any mental state or action of which he can
think that draws a man closer to God. Were we to suggest it, doubtless the
categorical aspect of faith would be included in the list. Semi-Pelagianism is
not, therefore, avoided.
Furthermore, I think it plausible to believe that Pelagianism is not avoided
either. Consider those individuals who have the categorical element of faith
artificially created in their minds. Are they to count as saved? Presumably

not, if the libertarian is right (and “faith” in (F2) is such that it requires free
choice). But to suppose they would be damned is surely an unpalatable conse-
quence given the trust in God they would exhibit when they come before him
for judgment. Their faith in Christ need be no less sincerely felt or fervently
clung to than the greatest of Christians we have read about in history, despite
its curious origin. It seems to me a very strange thing for God to damn those
who come before him full of faith and joy at meeting him, only because their
faith was not freely brought about.25 If my intuitions are a reliable guide here,
then it will follow that Pelagianism has not been avoided at all, because to
bring about the categorical ground of faith in a man is to effect that man’s
salvation.
Nor will the appeal to libertarianism avoid the suggested absurd conse-
quences materialism might have for the evangelistic enterprise. Although the
libertarian Christian materialist might insist that those who undergo an opera-
tion (or swallow a “Faith Pill” or whatever) that brings about the categorical
aspect of faith are not really saved, presumably these people could still be
saved through a free recommitment to Christ. But it looks like this would be
a trivial matter to obtain once the neuroscientist has secured the initial unfree
commitment. It is to be expected that they would be happy to recommit given
that they already have a commitment, because it is easy to reaffirm something
you already believe. So, the possibility of such an operation would still result
in the trivialization of the evangelistic enterprise.
OBJECTION FROM EXTERNALISM
There is another line of response the Christian materialist may take: endorse
an externalism about faith. What if what constitutes faith is not entirely a mat-
ter of things intrinsic to a person? What if it involves external relations, causal
relations perhaps, to things outside the person? In this case, we might say that
faith is only truly faith if it involves causal relations to God. The power of
the neuroscientist, it may be thought, is therefore stayed. It is not possible for
a neuroscientist to bring about faith because such causal relations lie beyond
his capacity to secure—he cannot force the hand of God. Therefore, in this
way the Christian materialist avoids the commitment to both Pelagianism
and the problematic effects that neuroscience might have for the evangelistic
enterprise.
Note first that such an externalist account would violate (N): suppose we
had two individuals, both of whom were in the same brain state, namely one
of the brain states necessary for faith. Assume, however, God causally relates
in the required way with one but not with the other. In such a case we would
200 Matthew J. Hart
have physically identical individuals with a mental difference: one has faith
and the other does not. Nevertheless, I think we can grant the materialist this
externalism—I think such a position would remain true to the spirit of Chris-
tian materialism if not the letter.
For an instance of an externalist account of faith, we might turn to Alvin
Plantinga.26 His account appears to run close to, if not satisfy, this description.
Plantinga writes,
The believer encounters the great truths of the gospel; by virtue of the activity
of the Holy Spirit, she comes to see that these things are indeed true. . . . [Faith]
resembles memory, perception, reason, sympathy, induction, and other more
standard belief-producing processes. It differs from them in that it also involves
the direct action of the Holy Spirit, so that the immediate cause of belief is not
to be found just in her natural epistemic equipment. There is the special and
supernatural activity of the Holy Spirit.27
Plantinga here appears to endorse the operation of the Holy Spirit as essential
to the faith process. If the direct activity of the Holy Spirit is not present, then
we know ipso facto that faith is not present either. The neuroscientist cannot
force the Holy Spirit to work, ergo he cannot bring about faith.
But then I should like to know what the neuroscientist is bringing about,
if not faith. Suppose the neuroscientist brings about the belief in the great
things of the gospel in a way that does not involve the operation of the Holy
Spirit, by surgery, say. Has faith been brought about? Plantinga’s account
appears to commit one to the view it has not. On the one hand, this results in
the happy conclusion that the neuroscientist cannot bring about faith; on the
other hand, we are once again confronted with the disconcerting spectacle of
sincere believers in Christ that are not saved, because what appears to be faith
in them does not count as such because of its nondivine initiation. Again, I
suggest that such a picture is so disconcerting that it is more sensible to say
that they do in fact have faith. But then it will follow that Pelagianism has
not been avoided.
Even if one bites the bullet in that regard, it remains plain that Semi-Pela-
gianism has not been avoided. Merely by bringing about belief in the great
things of the gospel, even if faith is nowhere to be seen, is sufficient to prove
ABILITY, for such a state is certainly a big step toward salvation.
Perhaps the problem is that the externalism suggested was insufficiently
extreme. Perhaps we need a causal-content externalism about faith. On this
view, what makes faith in God faith in God are the causal relations that state
bears to God. If the causal relations were borne to something else, it would
be faith in that something else. Again, this would mean it is not possible for
a neuroscientist to bring about faith because the requisite causal relations to
God lie beyond his capacity to secure. But it would nevertheless issue in some
strange consequences. It would remain possible for the neuroscientist to bring
about a state that is, although not faith, phenomenologically and disposition-
ally identical to it. If he tries to bring about faith in the lab, then, despite his
best efforts, and although he may produce what it is to all appearance a cheer-
ful and devout believer, that supposed believer’s faith will actually be, unbe-
knownst to the “believer” themselves, in the neuroscientist and not in God.
Once more, I find it very implausible to suppose that these supposed pseu-
dobelievers are not in fact faithful believers. They would be just as sincere
or devout as their genuine counterparts, and they may be introspectively and
intrinsically just as we genuine believers are. For God to give them radically
different eternal destinies is counterintuitive. But to follow our intuitions here
is to realize that Pelagianism has not been avoided.
Let us also note that, externalism or no, faith in God will never be an
entirely extrinsic matter. It will not be the case that an individual comes to
faith and the “change” has been entirely extrinsic and nothing has altered
about that person intrinsically. Focusing our attention on these intrinsic
aspects helps us see that causal-content externalism does not help the Chris-
tian materialist avoid Semi-Pelagianism either. Call these extrinsic aspects
receptor states. Although bringing these about will not be sufficient to bring
about faith, they remain necessary for faith and are an important step in the
process of coming to Christ. But if it remains possible for the neuroscientist
to bring these about, then INABILITY is false and ABILITY is true.
I wish to introduce a different argument at this juncture. Note that the removal
of the externalist receptor-states is sufficient for the removal of faith. But is not
the ability to remove faith just as problematic as the ability to install it? It may
well be, and I would therefore like to, in the next section, press the argument
that Christian materialism, if true, would threaten the security of the believer.
REMOVING FAITH
Christian materialists of every stripe would hold to (F2), that is, the necessity of
faith for salvation. But then, even if it is conceded that materialism does not per-
mit the possibility of faith obtaining via illicit means, there remains the question
of whether it permits the possibility of faith being removed via illicit means.
I gave two scenarios when it came to bringing faith about: Chance and
Design. We can rework them both to deal with the removal of faith rather
than its initiation. With Chance, rather than the slapped fellow’s brain being
rearranged so that religious faith comes to be, we suppose that the slap so
rearranged his brain that his religious faith ceased to be, and maybe also
replaced it with a rejection of religious belief.
202 Matthew J. Hart
With Design, we might suppose that the neuroscientist, at the prompt-

ing of militant atheists perhaps, decides to prey on elderly Christians. As
these Christians near the end of their lives, the neuroscientist sneaks into
their houses or care homes and performs his operation while they sleep,
removing their faith just before their death. Not merely that, we might also
suppose he brings about a state sufficient for a positive rejection of God.
In this way, he brings it about that these elderly folk enter into eternity
as determined unbelievers. Rather than deathbed conversions, we might
have deathbed deconversions! I discussed before the possibility of “Faith
Pills”—pills that, through chemicals or tiny robots, put your brain in a state
such that faith obtains. We can instead consider the possibility of “Decon-
version Pills,” pills that will rearrange a believer’s brain such that no sub-
venient base for religious belief remains. Suppose an enthusiastic secularist
manages to mix these pills into a church’s postservice brew, turning the
usually helpful tea ladies into ministers of apostasy. Is this something we
want to acknowledge as a possibility? Yet Christian materialism says we
must.
Chance and Design cases that deal with the removing of faith, rather than
its inception, we can append a minus sign to, like so: Chance– and Design–.
This should keep matters clearer.
The reasoning behind Chance– and Design– is parallel to that which we
used when it came to Chance and Design, but with the acknowledgment that
removing faith is a harder task than installing it, because, by (B3), all mem-
bers of Sb must be removed from the target, as opposed to bringing about just
one of them. But that is not a principled obstacle, and therefore by removing
these brain states, possession of at least one of which is necessary for faith,
the slap or the neuroscientist removes faith.
The possibility of such a thing is not condemned by the Second Council of
Orange, but it is at odds with what we might call the security of the believer.
Consider verses such as John 10:28–29: “I give them eternal life, and they
will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father,
who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch
them out of the Father’s hand.”28 Calvinists will see here a declaration of the
perseverance of saints (F4). Arminians may see here only the weaker claim
that believers cannot lose their salvation under any circumstances save by
personal repudiation of it. Either way, Chance– and Design–, by describing
the removal of faith in a way that does not involve personal repudiation,
show how Christian materialism threatens the assurance Jesus wants to give
the believer. How could it be impossible for the believer ever to fall away
from the faith (except, perhaps, by voluntary choice), if it is possible for all
the relevant brain states to be removed? And even replaced by ones which
guarantee a rejection of God?
One objection to Chance– and Design– (and Chance and Design) is that
the scenarios described are rather far-fetched. One might think that God will
so order matters as to prevent them from happening. I deal with that objection
in more detail at the end of the chapter. When it comes to the removal of faith,
though, there is no need to appeal to future technological advances or unlikely
happenings, for it looks as if the problematic scenarios are already here. Call
these cases Accident cases. I invite you to consider, as one example, the case
of Terri Schiavo. This was a famous case in the United States for the issues
it raised over the right to life.29 The details are as follows. Terri Schiavo col-
lapsed of a heart attack on February 25, 1990 and remained in a coma for two
and a half months. When she emerged from the coma, she regained a sleep-
wake cycle, but did not exhibit repeatable and consistent awareness of herself
or her environment. She had gone a long period without oxygen before being
taken to the hospital, and this led to profound brain injury, severely damaging
those parts of the brain concerned with cognition, perception, and awareness.
Indeed, the matter from these regions of the brain had more or less gone: her
brain weighed only 615 grams (21.7 ounces)—half the weight expected for a
female of her age, height, and weight, an effect caused by the loss of a mas-
sive number of neurons. She eventually died on March 31, 2005.
A case where someone is put in a coma but later recovers with no ill
effects is no problem for the materialist: the brain matter which the material-
ist supposes grounds the categorical aspect of faith remained throughout. But
in Accident cases, such as the Schiavo case, the brain matter which would
ground faith is gone—it has died. Here consciousness appears to be retained,
but anything that would ground higher-order conceptual function is gone. But
if it is possible for someone to lose such higher-order capacities and remain
alive then surely, if this were to happen to a believer, that believer would have
lost their faith while remaining alive.30 But then, by (F2), they are no longer
saved. But it is a severe doctrine indeed that implies that such a person now
faces damnation because they no longer have faith—after all, they may have
been in no way culpable for its loss.
Moreover, even if they were culpable to some extent for their injury, nev-
ertheless, as noted above, it is part of Christian doctrine that salvation is not
supposed to be capable of being lost by injury. Paul gives us in Romans 8:38–
39 the stirring and powerful declaration that “neither death nor life, neither
angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It would be unfortunate
indeed if materialism implied that a mere blow to the head could do the trick!
I mentioned that I think substance dualism the best solution to these prob-
lems. Why is that? Why not just be property dualists? One important reason is
this: in cases such as the Schiavo case, it seems the relevant physical substrate
204 Matthew J. Hart
has gone. So, if faith is to remain, then it must have an immaterial substratum,
namely the soul. The substance dualist may hold that faith is always locked
away in a compartment of the soul, invulnerable to harm. It then becomes
easy for him to suppose that believers in Accident cases lose all the relevant
portions of their brain without losing faith, because faith is instantiated in the
soul, not in any portion of corporeal matter.
ORIGINAL SIN AND REGENERATION
After that detour concerning the removal of faith, I would like to turn atten-
tion back to the Second Council of Orange, in particular, to its affirmation of
a doctrine of original sin. Recall the conclusion of the council: “The sin of
the first man has so impaired and weakened free will that no one thereafter
can either love God as he ought or believe in God or do good for God’s sake,
unless the grace of divine mercy has preceded him.” Ott summarizes Catholic
thought on original sin as follows: “it is the absence of . . . sanctifying grace”
and this has given mankind over to mortality, ignorance, malice, infirmity of
will, and concupiscence.31 The Reformed view is stronger: original sin has
left man with a fundamental deformity of nature. His will is bent toward evil
in a way that is unnatural, and there is a darkness over his entire psychology.
Berkhof speaks of a “contagion of . . . sin . . . spread through the entire man,
leaving no part of his nature untouched, but vitiating every power and faculty
of body and soul.”32
This darkness under which we labor is not supposed to be capable of being
humanly removed. This weakness which is part of original sin is surely some-
thing which only the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit can overcome.
This is why canon 7 says we cannot “form any right opinion or make any
right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life through our natural
powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit”—our
minds are too darkened for that now. The crookedness of our hearts is now
so great that only God can fix it. We might say this:
ORIGINAL SIN: The wounding of man’s nature, and the wicked desires which
assail him, are beyond his natural powers (post-Eden) to cure or remove—
supernatural intervention is required for that.
But this is false on Christian materialism. If Christian materialism is true,

then this great problem is humanly soluble. By pouring all our energy and
resources into neuroscience and the study of the body we can discover the
material subvenient bases of these various malaises which afflict man’s
nature and then remove or fix them, restoring man in large measure to his
prelapsarian state, and rolling back the effects of the fall.33 But it is surely a
grave mistake to think we have such a thing within our power. The curse can
only be undone through the grace and mercy of God. Materialism encourages
what the Christian will think is an unwholesome attitude to the spiritual pre-
dicament of humanity; the answer is not necessarily bound up with God, but
within man’s grasp, if he is sufficiently enterprising and ingenious. To block
this idea we must deny (N), and therefore be Christian dualists.
INABILITY and ORIGINAL SIN deal with matters before salvation. What
about things after? There too we encounter another problem for Christian
materialism. Consider the doctrine of regeneration. This is the renewal of
mind and spiritual empowerment which a man receives upon conversion.
The Westminster Confession describes it thus: an “enlightening [of] their [the
elect’s] minds, spiritually and savingly, to understand the things of God, tak-
ing away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh; renew-
ing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is
good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most
freely, being made willing by his grace.”34 Catholics prefer to call it “sanctify-
ing grace.”35 Now, it is not merely the coming to faith that is beyond man’s
power to secure, but also, surely, the great psychological blessings given and
experienced by the believer when he comes to Christ. Again, we want to say
that such blessings from God are things only the Holy Spirit could bestow.
REGENERATION: All the spiritual virtue and delight in God and renewal of
mind that are the typical result of conversion are beyond man’s natural powers
(post-Eden) to secure for himself—supernatural intervention is required for
those.
But this is also false on Christian materialism. All those great states of the
Christian—the delight in God, the hatred of sin, the strength to resist temp-
tation, the love of the brethren, and “the peace of God, which surpasses all
understanding” (Phil. 4:7)—are within man’s power to acquire for himself,
if he can locate their subvenient brain states. Then he can bring about an
artificial regeneration, bypassing the power of the Holy Spirit. But this is not
something we want to be able to say, and if Christian materialism permits us
to say it, then we should reject Christian materialism.
SOME OBJECTIONS
Now for some objections.

Objection 1: Why do we not take INABILITY, FAITH, ORIGINAL SIN
and REGENERATION to be concerned with practical possibility? In other
206 Matthew J. Hart
words, FAITH expresses the practical impossibility of a man effecting his

own or another’s salvation without divine aid. REGENERATION expresses
the practical impossibility of a man giving himself the “peace of God, which
surpasses all understanding,” and so on. We might concede that these things
are possible in a nomological sense, but deny their possibility in a practical
sense. Just as it is nomologically possible that I hit a hole-in-one, but it is
not practically possible for me—I am a hopeless golfer, say—so it may be
nomologically possible that I bring about faith without the Holy Spirit, but
not practically possible. Chance, for instance, would then be no counterex-
ample to FAITH so construed, for it involves a great fluke, and such unlikely
flukes do not make you practically able to bring about whatever it was that
the great fluke brought about.
Response: The problem here is precisely that something being practically
impossible is compatible with it happening as a fluke. But does one really
think that the theologians at the Second Council of Orange would have been
happy to say that “salvation is beyond the practical ability of man to secure
for himself, but nevertheless it might occur through a great fluke”? Surely
they intend to be stricter than that.
Objection 2: Perhaps the restriction in INABILITY, FAITH, ORIGINAL
SIN and REGENERATION is better thought of in terms of providential
impossibility. In other words, we can read these claims as expressing that,
relative to the providential purpose of God, it is not possible for an unbeliever
to acquire faith by chance or by the ingenuity of the neuroscientist, nor for
man to roll back the curse, and so on. Again, we may well grant that it is
nomologically possible for human beings to do these things (give themselves
faith, cure original sin, grant themselves the regeneration that is thought of as
the exclusive purview of the Holy Spirit, etc.), but the point is that God will
so order history that none will ever achieve it. In any case, won’t it be a long
time before the technology has advanced enough as these scenarios describe?
Won’t the Lord have returned by then? Either way, we can suppose the sce-
narios you describe just aren’t going to happen—God will make sure of it.36
Response: First, this does not sound like something we should say either.
Would those who take seriously the sort of theology that lies behind the
Second Council of Orange be prepared to say the following? “Of course, it
is quite within our natural powers to bring about salvation by ourselves, you
know! Only God won’t let us. He’ll always make sure it won’t come to pass.”
I do not think so, and I do not find it ideal.
Second, dualism remains the more probable explanation of the data. We
can suppose the dualist and the materialist agree on the following proposition:
(P) God has made it the case that none of the objectionable scenarios I described
above will come to pass.
But the dualist and the materialist will disagree on how God has secured the
truth of (P). The dualist hypothesis is that he has done this by locking the
relevant mental states away in the soul. The materialist hypothesis is that
he has done this by spatiotemporal means: structuring the physical world or
history to foreclose the objectionable scenarios, perhaps by ensuring that the
technology will not or cannot develop that far.
The problem with this latter suggestion is that we know that many ways
God could have used to prevent this sort of thing spatiotemporally have not
been used, and this lowers the probability that he has foreclosed the objec-
tionable scenarios in that manner. For example, God could have made the
brain entirely inscrutable to scientific investigation, yet neuroscience pro-
ceeds apace; he could have surrounded the relevant part of the brain with an
impenetrable wall of force that departs on death, but there is no such thing;
or he could have deprived us of the concepts needed to study the brain, and
so forth. Yet none of these spatiotemporal means of blocking the objection-
able scenarios has happened; they are ways God could have used, but we find
he has not used them; and the more we learn about the brain, and the closer
history gets to one of the problematic scenarios I described, the less likely it
is that God is using spatiotemporal means.
Indeed, every advance we make in neuroscience is evidence against the
idea that God is ensuring by physical or historical means that (P) is true,
because with every advance we discover another way in which the brain
becomes accessible to us and another way which God has not used to prevent
(P) from occurring, namely, by preventing neuroscience from getting as far as
that. Because every advance in neuroscientific technology becomes evidence
against (P)’s being secured by contingencies of world and history, they there-
fore become evidence against Christian materialism.
CONCLUSION
Let me draw this chapter to a close with a brief summary. I have argued
that Christian beliefs about original sin, the nature of faith, and regenera-
tion as represented by the Second Council of Orange are inconsistent with
Christian materialism. The Christian materialist, because of his commit-
ment to the nomological supervenience of mental states on brain states,
is forced to think that many of the mental states of central importance in
Christian soteriology lie, in principle, within man’s power to bring about.
These include faith itself, an undoing of the psychological effects of the
fall, and the renewal of the mind that is part of regeneration. I noted the
untoward consequences for evangelism, if such things lie within man’s
natural powers.
208 Matthew J. Hart
I also made the argument that Christian materialism threatens the security
of the believer. Not only does Christian materialism imply the capacity to
bring about faith artificially, but also to remove it artificially, it appears. This
conclusion is in tension with the believer’s assurance of safety in Christ (and
especially with the doctrine of the perseverance of saints). Christian material-
ism raises the worrying question of whether it is possible to cause someone
to lose their salvation irregardless of their wishes. Because Christian dualism
can straightforwardly guarantee the nomological impossibility of this, we
have further reason to prefer dualism over materialism.
Do I think the arguments developed here are decisive? I do not. Were I
a materialist, I would take the suggestion that I developed in Objection 2.
I would grant that it is in principle possible for man to give himself faith, et
cetera, but that God would, as sovereign Lord, simply prevent such things
from ever coming to pass. That said, I would also concede that it would be
better overall for the problematic scenarios described in this chapter to be
nomologically impossible, and I would therefore grant that the unavailability
of such a response would be a cost to Christian materialism. I am not a mate-
rialist, though, and so I will strike a triumphalist note: the unavailability of
such a response is one more nail in the coffin of Christian materialism.
NOTES

Human and Divine, ed. Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007); “Dualism and Materialism: Athens and Jerusalem?” Faith
and Philosophy 12, no. 4 (1995): 475–488; Material Beings (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
2. Hud Hudson, A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2001).
3. Lynne Rudder Baker, “Material Persons and the Doctrine of Resurrection,”
Faith and Philosophy 18, no. 2 (2001): 151–167; “Need a Christian Be a Mind/Body
Dualist?” Faith and Philosophy 12, no. 4 (1995): 489–504.
Cambridge University Press, 2006).
5. Trenton Merricks, “How to Live Forever without Saving Your Soul: Physical-
ism and Immortality,” in Soul, Body, and Survival, ed. Kevin J. Corcoran (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2001).
6. See William Vallicella, “Could a Classical Theist Be a Physicalist?” Faith and
Philosophy 15, no. 2 (1998): 160–180 for issues this raises.
7. Cf. Jaegwon Kim, Mind in a Physical World (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1998), 9.
8. Just replace “nomologically” in (N) with “metaphysically” to get (M).
9. Benjamin B. Warfield, Two Studies in the History of Doctrine (New York: The
Christian Literature Company, 1897), 6.
10. Warfield, Two Studies, 8.
11. Warfield, Two Studies, 8.
12. Warfield, Two Studies, 7–8.
13. Aidan Nichols, The Conversation of Faith and Reason: Modern Catholic
Thought from Hermes to Benedict XVI (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications,
2011), 9.
14. For this text and the text of Canons, see “The Canons of the Second Council
of Orange (529),” accessed July 15, 2017, http://www.crivoice.org/creedorange.html
15. “Good acts relating to salvation” and “good states relating to salvation” might
seem too broad. If an unbelieving mayor agrees to let a church host a gospel meeting in
the town hall, then wouldn’t the mayor be performing a good act relating to salvation? Do
we want to insist that he could only have done so if a supernatural power lay behind his
act? I’m inclined to think not. But, although it may well be a tricky affair to demarcate
precisely the two classes of act and state for which the intervention of the Holy Spirit is
always required, I hope it is clear from the council the sort of thing that is meant.
16. I realize that Semi-Pelagianism is really a narrower claim than this, namely
that it is within man’s natural powers to perform an act, or be in a state, that initiated,
or made available the initiation of, the process of salvation without supernatural aid.
But I find the characterization I give more useful for my purposes, logically more
perspicuous, nevertheless tending toward Pelagianism, and coming under the con-
demnation of the council in any case.
17. Bracketing, if you like, the case of infants.
18. Wayne Grudem, a prominent Calvinist theologian, defends this view in his
Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 792–793, on the basis of
his exegesis of 1 Peter 1:5 and other passages.
19. David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1996), 125–126.
20. Chalmers, Conscious Mind, 248–249.
21. See Andrew Newberg, Principles of Neurotheology (Farnham, UK: Ashgate,
2010) for a survey of the field.
22. Peter van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1983).
23. Some compatibilists can make a similar complaint. Fischer and Ravizza’s
view, for instance, requires for moral responsibility that the relevant decision be
caused by a reasons-responsive mechanism (John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza,
Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility [Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1998]). Perhaps the neuroscientist’s procedure or “Faith
Pills” don’t satisfy this criterion. However, the response I make to the libertarian will
hold good for this sort of compatibilist also.
24. He can do this by bringing about the categorical element directly or by causing
an unfree decision to have faith—it should not matter which.
25. This possibility also risks conflicting with texts such as Acts 16:31, Rom.
10:9–11, and Psalm 25:3, which promise salvation to all who believe. To read all such
210 Matthew J. Hart
passages as involving only freely inaugurated belief places an unwelcome pressure

on biblical interpretation. Of course, if the only nomologically possible way to come
to the categorical ground of faith was by a free choice, then there would be no such
interpretative pressure (because if you believed, then you would have freely believed,
and the whole idea of “unfree believers” would be nomologically impossible), but to
secure that the Christian libertarian will have to reject (N) and therefore be a Christian
dualist.
26. I do not wish to suggest that Plantinga is a materialist. He is not. See Alvin
Plantinga, “Materialism and Christian Belief,” in Persons: Human and Divine.
27. Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2000), 256.
28. All Scripture quotations are from the ESV.
29. See Hessel Bouma, “Challenges & Lessons from the Terri Schiavo Case,”
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 57, no. 3 (2005): 212–220, and T. Koch,
“The Challenge of Terri Schiavo: Lessons for Bioethics,” Journal of Medical Ethics
31 (2005): 376–378 for summaries of the affair.
30. Was Terri herself a believer? Her parents said she was a devout Roman
Catholic. “Terri was a devout Catholic all her life” is a quote from “Terri Schi-
avo Would Not Want To Go Against The Catholic Church, Her Parents Argue
(Sept. 15, 2004)” accessed July 19, 2017, http://mn.gov/mnddc/news/inclusion-
daily/2004/09/091504fladvschiavo.htm. See also Bouma, “Challenges & Lessons,”
212.
31. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Cork: Mercier Press, 1955),
110, 113.
32. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1958),
223–224.
33. As far as the moral aspect goes, at any rate. We might not be able to restore
ourselves to bodily immortality.
34. Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 3, 3rd ed. (New York: Harper
& Brothers, 1882), 624.
35. Ott, Fundamentals, 254.
36. Note that this isn’t an adequate response to Accident cases, for they are already
happening.
Baker, Lynne Rudder. “Need a Christian Be a Mind/Body Dualist?” Faith and Phi-
losophy 12, no. 4 (1995): 489–504.
Bouma, Hessel. “Challenges & Lessons from the Terri Schiavo Case.” Perspectives
on Science and Christian Faith 57, no. 3 (2005): 212–220.
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994.
Hudson, Hud. A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
Kim, Jaegwon. Mind in a Physical World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998.
Merricks, Trenton. “How to live forever without saving your soul: Physicalism and
Immortality.” In Soul, Body, and Survival, edited by Kevin J. Corcoran. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.
Murphy, Nancey. Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? New York: Cambridge Uni-
Newberg, Andrew. Principles of Neurotheology. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010.
Vallicella, William. “Could a Classical Theist be a Physicalist?” Faith and Philoso-
phy 15, no. 2 (1998): 160–180.
van Inwagen, Peter. “A materialist ontology of the human person.” In Persons:
Human and Divine, edited by Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Warfield, B. B. Two Studies in the History of Doctrine. New York: The Christian
Literature Company, 1897.
Chapter 11
Sanctification and Physicalism

R. Scott Smith
For the Christian, sanctification is the process by which we grow into the
likeness of Jesus Christ. As image bearers, Christians can become like Christ
through being his disciple, and this process includes (at least) moral, intel-
lectual, and volitional transformation. Since the Christian is to become like
Christ and live as he did, this growth is developed through deep, intimate
union with him, living just as he did in a deep heart and mind unity with the
Father in the power of the Spirit.
Now, on the received Christian tradition, these abilities have been under-
stood as involving a body-soul unity in humans, as well as various mental
states (such as thoughts and beliefs) and immaterial properties (such as the
moral and intellectual virtues). However, are these abilities to become like
Christ truly workable on a physicalist view of humans?
To explore this question, first, I will develop a biblical portrait of what
is involved in becoming like Christ morally, intellectually, and volitionally,
and how that requires a deep unity with the Lord’s heart and mind, all in the
power of the Spirit. I will sketch how this process and its relationship to our
nature as image bearers has been understood traditionally to involve a dual-
ism of body and soul, as well as a dualism of properties, in human persons.
Second, I will sketch some main points of Christian physicalism. Third,
I will explore to what extent we can become like Christ in these ways on
that ontology. I will develop three main lines of argument that physicalism
undermines sanctification. For one, I will argue that relationships with God
and other humans are impossible on physicalism. However, that result under-
mines our being able to fulfill the many “one another” obligations in Scrip-
ture, as well as our being able to live in relationship with God. For another,
physicalism disrupts our being able to have knowledge, which undermines
our ability to grow into having the mind of Christ. Furthermore, physicalism
213
214 R. Scott Smith
makes it impossible to grow in virtue, or even make sense of what it means

to be virtuous. A crucial reason for these results is that physicalism cannot
accommodate intentionality, the ofness or aboutness of our thoughts, beliefs,
experiences, etc. In conclusion, I will draw out some further implications
from this study.
BIBLICAL PORTRAIT OF THE LIFE UNITED WITH CHRIST
While Scripture portrays the unfolding of God’s great plan of redemption, it

also presents that within a larger, overarching theme, which spans the entirety
of Scripture, even before the fall, and into eternity. This can be helpfully
stated as follows, from God’s perspective: “I will be your God, you will be
my people, and I will dwell in your midst” (cf. Rev. 21:3). God wants to be
intimate and personal with his people who are set apart (sanctified) for him.
Several passages address aspects of this theme, such as Jeremiah 31:33c: “I
will be their God, and they shall be My people.”1 In God’s plan to accomplish
his salvation, Jesus “became flesh, and dwelt [tabernacled] among us” (John
1:14). Moreover, in fulfillment of the new covenant, God has given believers
his Spirit to be with them forever (John 14:16). Jesus also explains the con-
nection of love for him and his word with God’s making his home with us: “if
anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and
We will come to him and make Our abode [home] with him” (John 14:23).
The Spirit of Christ indwells Christians forever (John 14:17; see also Rom.
8:9 and Eph. 1:13).
There are many beautiful pictures in Scripture of God’s intimate presence
with his people. For instance, consider the tender care and affection of the
Father in Revelation 21:3–5a:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is
among men, and He will dwell among them, and they will be His people, and
God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their
eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourn-
ing, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on
the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
Another depiction occurs in Exodus 33, after Moses has interceded with God
not to utterly destroy the Israelites for their idolatry with the golden calf. In
verse 11, Moses’s relationship with God is described as enjoying intimate
friendship: God “used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to
his friend.” After their sin, God states that he does not want to go before the
people. Nevertheless, Moses persists and pleads with God: “Now therefore,
Sanctification and Physicalism 215
I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways, that I
may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight” (v. 13). God responds
in grace, that Moses has found favor in his sight, and God knows him per-
sonally, by name. Then, Moses asks for something amazing, which for many
years has expressed my own heart’s cry: “I pray You, show me Your glory!”
(v. 18), a request that delights God, and he honors it (34:6–8).
David is called a man after God’s own heart, and he too had intimate
acquaintance with the Lord. In Psalm 27:4, David’s one desire of the Lord is
to dwell in his house all his days, to behold God’s beauty, and seek his face
(v. 8). In Psalm 25:14 he knows God’s secret, intimate counsel is for those
who fear him. The narrative of his life illustrates that he knew this experien-
tially, such as when he asked God directly for knowledge of what Saul, who
was seeking David’s life, would do (1 Sam. 23:9–13).
So, God’s desire is to make a people for himself, a people in the midst of
whom he may dwell and be intimate. God wants us to be with him, glorify
him, and enjoy him forever. Although for now we see him in a mirror dimly,
one day we will see him face to face (1 Cor. 13:12; Rev. 22:4), even better
than what Moses experienced in Exodus 33:11.
Now, that theme is one to be lived in deep, intimate unity with Christ in
light of the benefits from the new birth through the new covenant. Consider
Ezekiel 36:25, in which God promises to give us a new heart after being
cleansed of our sin, by being sprinkled with water (a symbol of forgiveness).
Moreover, when Jesus tells Nicodemus of the need to be born by the Spirit
(John 3:3–8), he is thinking of Ezekiel 36:26–27 and God’s promise to give
us a new heart, that he would put his Spirit in us so that we would obey him.
In addition, through the new birth, he has given us the mind of Christ
(1 Cor. 2:16). This does not mean that our minds have been replaced by his;
rather, we now have access to Christ’s very mind. Consider how Christians
each have a first-person access to their own thoughts: I know mine by reflect-
ing upon them immediately. My wife, however, does not know my thoughts
in that same kind of way; she has access to my thoughts in a third-person
way, by my communicating them to her verbally and nonverbally. Paul puts
this concept as follows: “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man
except the spirit of the man which is in him?” Then, he applies the principle
to God: “Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God”
(1 Cor. 2:11).
Then Paul makes a stunning claim: “Now we have received, not the spirit
of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the things
freely given to us by God” (v. 12). For Old Testament believers, God’s laws
were written on scrolls and tablets, and they had access to his mind in a third-
person way. Now, in our being united with Christ, we have access through
the Spirit in us to Jesus’s mind in a first-person kind of way, as the Spirit
216 R. Scott Smith
discloses Jesus’s thoughts, plans, etc. This too is another amazing facet of the
kind of intimacy God wants with his people.
We may summarize the kind of relational intimacy God wants with his
set-apart ones as involving our hearts living in a deep, intimate unity with
his heart; and similarly for our minds with his mind; and all this by abiding
in Christ, that is, in the life and power of the Spirit. It should be no wonder,
then, that the greatest commandment focuses on exactly these “elements”:
“you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). Here, in
light of Jesus’s other specifications, I understand “soul” to refer to the whole
person, as an emphasis that we are to love him with all we are and all we
have. “Strength” brings to mind the Spirit’s life and power, for he gives us
power (e.g., Acts 1:8), and apart from abiding in him we can do nothing (John
15:5). Paul reiterates these emphases in his charge to Timothy, that God has
not given us a spirit of timidity, but his Spirit, and through him a “threefold
cord” that binds us close to the Lord: one of “power [from the Spirit] and
love [from the heart] and discipline [or, a sound judgment, from the mind]”
(2 Tim 1:7, inserts mine).
In Jesus, the perfect God-man, we see this kind of unity with the Father
lived out through the Spirit. The deep love relationship between the Father
and the Son shows us how Jesus loved the Father with all his heart and mind.
He knew experientially the beauty and fulfillment of the Father’s love, know-
ing him as Abba. And, he always lived in the fullness of the Spirit.
These emphases are of crucial importance because of our core need. Before
the fall, Adam and Eve lived in a deep heart, mind, and spirit unity with the
Lord, as well as with one another and even within themselves. But, at the fall,
that unity was severed; as Paul explains, apart from Christ, we are spiritually
dead to God (Eph. 2:1). This can be seen in Genesis 3:1–13, where the serpent
tempts Eve (and Adam) to eat of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. He claims that they will not die, as God had warned. Rather,
God was withholding something good from them, that they would become
like God, knowing (choosing, defining) good and evil. In effect, they could
usurp God’s place, deciding for themselves what is real, even morally (Gen.
3:5).
It seems Eve was mesmerized (cf. 1 Tim. 2:14), but Adam simply dis-
obeyed. It seems he chose to suspend what he knew God had said in order to
have a moment of perspective from his own thoughts. Yet, both were united
in their will to become powerful over God Almighty, by escaping the death
sentence (2:17) and diminishing his absolute love.
Here, sin is portrayed as the attitude and willful choice to usurp God and
worship a god of our own making, even ourselves. Moreover, this same
attitude is displayed throughout Scripture (e.g., Mark 12:1–12, 29; 15:10).
So, the default human condition after the fall is that our hearts are deeply
idolatrous and intent on usurping his throne. Like our hearts, our minds
have become united with Satan’s, so that we do the deeds of our father, the
devil (cf. John 8:37). Moreover, without the Spirit living in us, we are dead
spiritually.
So, our deep need is to be born from above, so that in fact we are united
with the Lord’s heart and mind, and we have his Spirit living in us. Still, we
also must abide in him (John 15), so that we actually live in that deep unity
of heart, mind, and strength he has made possible. These are necessary condi-
tions for sanctification.
Now, typically, these qualities that Scripture attributes to the heart and
mind have been thought to be immaterial kinds of properties of the soul. That
is, the traditional, received theological view of human ontology is that we
are a unity of body and soul (substance dualism). For instance, we may see
this in Augustine. For him, the soul is not a bodily kind of thing; nor can it
be transformed into a body. Moreover, the entire soul is present at the same
time throughout all of the body.2 Aquinas also affirmed substance dualism of
human beings.3 Moreover, arguably on Thomism, the soul is the essence of
the person.4 John Calvin also accepted a substance dualist view. He clearly
distinguishes the soul from the body as a created, incorporeal essence, which
is the seat of the image of God.5
Now, God is nonphysical, and he has beliefs, thoughts, willings, emotions,
and more, all of which are important qualities to have interpersonal relation-
ships. At least on the received substance dualist view of humans, since we
bear God’s image, it would seem that these properties would be ones of our
immaterial essence: our soul.6 These qualities, along with experiences, often
have been called mental states, which terminology reflects a dualist ontology.
Now, almost every mental state has a common quality: they are of or about
things.7 This quality is known as intentionality. Also, moral character quali-
ties (virtues) often have been thought to be qualities of the soul.
However, with the rise of forms of physicalism advocated by various mod-
ern Christians, such qualities could not exist as such. While as Christians they
would want to hold onto the need to grow in sanctification, they would need
to be able to explain the biblical qualities involved therein in terms of the
ontology of physicalism. Moreover, they would need to be able to preserve
our abilities to have interpersonal relationships, to know what is on the mind
of Christ, and to be able to become like him morally. In what follows, I will
sketch briefly the main points of physicalism advocated by a Christian, and I
will use the Christian philosopher and theologian, Nancey Murphy, to lay out
a model. Others’ versions (e.g., from Kevin Corcoran, Lynne Rudder Baker,
and Joel Green) will need to fit into a basic physicalist ontology, too. Hav-
ing made that sketch, I will explore to what extent physicalism can explain
218 R. Scott Smith
and preserve these aspects of sanctification, including to grow in intimacy of

relationship with Christ, and to live in deep unity of heart, mind, and spirit
with him.
MURPHY’S CHRISTIAN PHYSICALISM
Murphy observes that many versions of physicalism try to reduce causation

to just the lowest level of parts that determine behavior at higher levels.8 In
contrast, she argues for a nonreductive physicalism, in which there is both
“bottom-up” and “top-down,” or “whole-part,” causation. For example, she
argues properties or processes emerge from the physical, and these features
can be described only by concepts from a higher level of analysis than phys-
ics.9 For another, she believes that “emergent laws (laws relating variables at
the higher level) are coming to be seen as significant in their own right and
not merely as special cases of lower-level laws.”10
Additionally, laws at higher levels restrain lower-level processes, and
higher-level states are multiply realizable. This means an act that can be
described at the biological level also can be described at still other, higher
levels (such as psychological, moral, or sociological) by speaking from the
standpoint of their respective languages. For instance, biologically, a person
may kill some fish, the Santa Ana River sucker. Psychologically, we consider
intentions, which involve the circumstances of the event, making the event
an action (ordering a diversion of the river’s water for a city’s use). Socially,
a different description could arise, such as how this was a prudent move to
offset drought conditions for citizens. This social-level description involves
a different set of circumstances. There also could emerge moral descriptions
and claims; for example, “The act was immoral because it threatened an
endangered species.” Or, a legal claim could arise: “the move violated Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency regulations.” Following Wittgenstein, these
linguistic usages involve different languages, which are governed by the rules
of their respective language games.11
According to Murphy, at each level, different circumstances, and thus dif-
ferent languages, come into play. For her, certain lower-level properties (bio-
logical or physical, for instance) can constitute a kind of higher-level property
(social, moral, etc.) under proper circumstances.12 Thus, these higher-order
properties are not identical to the lower-order ones.
However, while she approves of higher-level properties, and she rejects
causal reductionism, nonetheless she clearly embraces ontological reduction-
ism. For her, ontologically, creation is physical.13 Accordingly, ontologically
any so-called “mental” properties are physical properties. Yet, we may speak
(or conceive) of them as mental from a different language-game, such as

psychology.
Likewise, for Murphy, there is no need philosophically or scientifically for
a substantial, immaterial soul in her ontology.14 For her, the soul simply is
a “functional capacity of a complex physical organism”; it is not a separate,
immaterial essence.15 If there is no neocortex, then there is no capacity for
thought, and there would not be persons.16 Or, as she puts it elsewhere, “The
nonreductive physicalist view . . . attributes mental and spiritual properties
to the entire person, understood as a complex physical and social organ-
ism.”17 Moreover, scriptural uses of psuche do not require the existence of
the (immaterial) soul. Rather, these uses could be translated as “life,” which
does not seem to require substance dualism.18
With this sketch of her Christian physicalism in hand, let us explore to
what extent it will fit well with the biblical model that we have seen is needed
for sanctification.
PHYSICALISM AND SANCTIFICATION
As I have argued, sanctification necessarily involves believers growing in

relationship with the Lord, and also with one another. We need to know what
is on the Lord’s heart and mind. He also wants us to have a deep, rich, expe-
riential relationship with him. The same, of course, would apply to others,
too, for we are to grow into Christlikeness in how we relate to others. Thus,
interpersonal relationships are crucial for sanctification, and, as I discussed
above, they involve the kinds of states that I called “mental” ones.
Let me illustrate some of the qualities needed for interpersonal relation-
ships by considering my relationship with my wife. To be in a good relation-
ship with her involves my having experiences that are of her, as well as many
thoughts, beliefs, desires, and more. When beginning to get to know her and
what she is like, I could observe her words as well as her nonverbal behaviors.
Then I could form some tentative thoughts of what would please her, what
she would enjoy doing, etc. Over time, I could form beliefs about her based
on what I observed of her responses to questions, situations, and my actions.
She also needs to be able to do the same in regards to me. Now, years later,
we have desires for our family, as well as intentions—that is, our goals for
which we act.
Notice that these qualities all involve what I mentioned before: intentional-
ity, the ofness or aboutness of our mental states. Now, if physicalism is cor-
rect, it seems that intentionality would have to be able to be accounted for in
a way in keeping with physicalism. But, can it?
220 R. Scott Smith
There are two main ways that philosophers have tried to explain intention-
ality on a physicalist ontology. Despite the fact that these ways have been
suggested by naturalists, I think they could apply just as well to Christian
physicalists, for these naturalists also embrace a reductive physicalist ontol-
ogy. The first option is from Michael Tye, who argues that the ofness or
aboutness of a mental state is just a matter of causal covariation under optimal
conditions.19 On his kind of view, my belief is of the tree because the tree is
causing in me that belief through a long, causal process of light waves bounc-
ing off the tree, impinging on my retina, and ultimately causing that belief
in my brain.
Now, surely Tye is correct in that there is a causal story to be told in
sensory perception, and beliefs formed on that basis. Even so, this view of
intentionality has some significant problems.20 The causal chain of physical
states is potentially infinitely long, and I would seem to be able to have access
only to the last state (the brain state that was caused by the preceding physi-
cal state in the causal chain). Moreover, the immediately prior physical state
that causes that belief modifies the brain. It is not a simple reproduction of
the same physical set of originating conditions (the tree) that is passed down
through the chain; rather, each state modifies the subsequent one. If so, by the
time the brain state occurs (which we are calling the belief about the tree),
it does not seem we should conclude that we are aware of the tree itself, as
it really is.
Not only that, but the entire chain of causes stands between me and the
tree. In light of these issues, how then could I know that my belief actually is
of the tree? It seems that I, as a bundle of physical states, cannot transcend the
last state in the chain and arrive at the original cause (the tree). I can interact
only with the last one, it seems.
However, it seems we need to be able to make epistemic contact with that
originating object itself, in order to be able to tell the difference between
veridical and false beliefs. Moreover, we need to be able to do this in a
way that does not somehow modify the object’s properties, lest we never be
able to access the object itself, but only as it is modified. Yet, on this causal
view, this seems dubious, for a physical, causal chain inevitably modifies its
object.21
Moreover, on this view of intentionality as causal covariation, it assumes
there is a relation that obtains between the originating object and the person
(or, perhaps better, the brain state in the person). Thus, to have mental states
requires that both relata obtain in reality. But, this seems false. Consider
cases of intentional inexistence. In these, what we are thinking of does not
obtain in reality. It seems we can think of such cases; for example, we can
think of Pegasus, or the present-day king of France. Clearly, there are no such
things in reality. Thus, these thoughts cannot be caused by their intentional
objects. Moreover, even in the case of hallucinations, on this view they must
be caused by something that exists physically. However, since we can think
of such things, it seems intentionality is not a matter of causal covariation
under optimal conditions. Though we can have such thoughts, which have
intentionality, yet those thoughts get no further.
Yet, an objector could claim that while I think nothing physical caused
such thoughts, something else physical actually did cause them. If that were
the case (and even considering this very scenario seems to undermine the
claim), then consider what would happen in ordinary life situations. Sup-
pose I cannot find my eyeglasses at home. I can have a thought of what
would be the case if I had left my eyeglasses on the coffee table. Then I
can investigate by going and looking at the coffee table, but notice that
they are not there (for in fact I left them on my dresser). So, then I can look
elsewhere and confirm (or disconfirm) my new thought of where I left them
by matching it with what I notice in experience. Moreover, it seems that in
science, we also explore such hypotheticals frequently, to test if things are
as we think or not.
Yet, if something physical always must cause our thoughts, experiences,
and other mental states, then whether my experience of my glasses was
caused by my glasses or something else radically different, I will not know.
That is, it seems we would not be able to tell the difference between veridical
and nonveridical cases. However, such inabilities would undermine not only
significant aspects of daily lives, but science as well.
Also as a naturalist, Daniel Dennett offers a second way to treat inten-
tionality in a physicalist ontology. For him, if we take naturalistic evolution
seriously, there are no real mental entities, and there is no real intentionality.
Dennett considers his theory of mental content (the intentional content of
beliefs, desires, fears, hopes, etc.) to be functionalist, by which he means “all
attributions of content are founded on an appreciation of the functional roles
of the items in question in the biological economy of the organism (or the
engineering of the robot).”22
Dennett uses a tactic he calls the intentional stance. This is a strategy “of
interpreting an entity by adopting the presupposition that it is an approxi-
mation of the ideal of an optimally designed (i.e., rational) self-regarding
agent.”23 That is, we treat humans, chess-playing computers, robots, and
more as if they have real beliefs, thoughts, purposes, etc, with intentionality.
This is a tactic we adopt in order to predict behavior efficiently. For instance,
suppose Mr. Spock is playing chess against the computer onboard the star-
ship Enterprise. According to Dennett, neither one has real intentionality, for
there is none according to naturalistic evolution and physicalism. Neverthe-
less, if we treat them as though they have it, we can predict their behaviors
by ascribing to them desires and beliefs as to how they likely will move their
222 R. Scott Smith
pieces to checkmate each other. When we adopt the intentional stance, we

have made a “decision to conduct one’s science in terms of beliefs, desires,
and other ‘mentalistic’ notions,” and Dennett thinks that is not unusual to do
in science.24
Now, on his naturalism, there is no room for any essential natures, whether
to humans themselves or even their beliefs, thoughts, experiences used to
make observations, and other states we label as mental. Nor would there be
any essence to intentionality. But, Dennett realizes an important implication
of there not being any essences: without them, there are no “deeper facts”
(i.e., beyond mere behavior) of the matter of what our thoughts (or beliefs,
experiences, etc.) are really about.
This claim, however, seems demonstrably false. Suppose we are enjoying
some frozen yogurt at a shop. When I take a spoonful, I can experience the
taste of my chosen yogurt (e.g., birthday cake flavor). Indeed, it seems I can
notice, if I pay attention, that my experience is of the taste of that yogurt.
Moreover, it does not seem that that experience could be the one that it is and
has turned out instead to be about the sound of the music in the store, some
other flavor of yogurt, or anything else. That would be a different experience
altogether. Thus, it seems that my experience of the taste of that yogurt has
an essence to it.
Yet, following Dennett, if there are no essences, then there would not be
any “deeper fact” (i.e., the intentional quality) of that experience that defines
what it is about and makes it the experience that it is, and not something else.
However, this has a significant and detrimental result for Dennett’s own view.
Dallas Willard rightly observes that Dennett seems to be left only with events
of “taking as,” in which we take some input as something else.25 Indeed, Den-
nett comes close to stating this point himself, when he discusses how brains
process their raw input: “there is no place where ‘it all comes together,’ no
line the crossing of which is definitive of the end of pre-conscious process-
ing and the beginning of conscious appreciation.”26 Nevertheless, if we are
left with only takings, and nothing is just given to us in conscious awareness,
then it seems everything is interpretation, including not only intentionality
but even Dennett’s naturalism itself.
From what we have seen, it seems intentionality cannot be preserved on
these physicalist views. Further, it seems hard to conceive of another option
for how adequately to treat intentionality on physicalism. The problem in
both Tye’s and Dennett’s reductive ontological views is that there does not
seem to be any room for intentionality to exist. Moreover, at least from Mur-
phy’s example, Christian physicalists, even of a (causally) nonreductive kind,
will not have ontological room for real intentionality either. After all, they are
physicalists. Therefore, it seems three disastrous kinds of implications follow
for Christian physicalists in regards to sanctification.
First, without real intentionality, it seems that interpersonal relationships

will not be able to happen. We would not be able to be in a deep heart and
mind unity with the Lord, or experience his voice in intimate communion
with us. We could not experience his love poured out in our hearts, nor could
we experience his presence and power. In contrast to the Lord, who is an
immaterial being with intentional states, we could not come to form justified
true beliefs about what the Lord is like. Yet, that seems necessary for good,
intimate relationships. For instance, I can trust my wife since I know her very
well; I have formed over time deeply justified beliefs about her character
from much experience and evidence. However, without the ability even to
have beliefs, it seems then intimacy with any person, including God, would
be undermined.
Since ideas, once acted upon, do tend to have consequences, these impli-
cations easily could lead to a mindset that though God exists, he is distant
from us now, since he cannot be intimate with us. Moreover, that tragic result
would be due to how he has made us, which conflicts with God’s explicit
desire to dwell intimately with his people. In short, since we would lack any
real mental states with their intentionality, we would not be able to truly love
God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength.
However, of course, the relational problems do not stop with God. For, if
we lack the requisite ontological qualities to love and be intimate with God,
we also will not be able to love one another. We will be divided and (at best)
relationally distant from one another, unable to communicate. While we
could stand in physical relations with one another (e.g., in terms of proximity,
or origins), it seems that interpersonal relations will not happen.
Not only that, it seems that we ourselves will not be whole, well-integrated
beings. How so? If we are to become like Jesus, then it seems that our hearts
and minds should be deeply united with each other. In Jesus’s case, it seems
he defined the mind of Christ by his love (from his heart) for the Father. But,
without any real mental states with intentionality, it seems this deep unity
within us will be impossible, for there would not be any real willings, beliefs,
or thoughts.
Second, there will not be any propositional knowledge (knowledge that
something is indeed the case), for the standard definition of propositional
knowledge involves true beliefs as well as justification.27 Clearly, then,
if there are no beliefs, there will not be any propositional knowledge.
Unfortunately, that means that we cannot have knowledge of what is in the
mind of Christ. We could not know what Scripture teaches, and we could
not know anything else that is on Jesus’s mind, such as his plans for us as
individuals.
Moreover, to see that there is justification for a belief requires, at least,
that the knowing subject can direct one’s attention to, access, and even notice
224 R. Scott Smith
(empirically or rationally) the evidence for a belief; and consider how well
that belief is supported thereby. These abilities also seem to require intention-
ality, such as with directing one’s attention to the evidence. For all intents and
purposes, then, it seems that physicalism undermines our having the mind of
Christ (1 Cor. 2:16), and even our minds’ being able to be transformed (Rom.
12:1–2).
Third, physicalism undermines our abilities to be like Christ morally. In
a key way, moral transformation involves knowledge of what pleases the
Lord, what he expects, and what he is like. Nevertheless, as we have seen,
physicalism undermines the knowledge necessary for the moral aspects of
sanctification.
Moreover, moral virtues, and even moral principles, do not seem suscep-
tible to being reduced to what is just physical.28 Crucially, being virtuous
involves more than just bodily behaviors that we label as virtuous. Suppose a
young person (A) extends his or her arm to an elderly person (E) who does in
fact have difficulty walking without assistance, and the elderly person holds
A’s arm with a hand. The two proceed to cross a street together. Now, we
probably would think that that was a kind act by A. Yet, someone could go
through all the motions that we might normally associate with being kind,
and yet not have the requisite attitude of intending to be kind. Instead, any
number of possible scenarios could in fact be the case. A might have done
these actions in order to give the appearance of being kind to F, A’s watching
friend, so as to gain F’s trust more, so that in turn F would do what A wanted
(say, give A the answers to an exam that A still has to take). Or, perhaps A
thinks that the best way to get an ice cream cone is to “help” E so that E will
be willing to buy A a cone.
In sharp contrast, Aristotle argues that virtues are concerned with pas-
sions and actions.29 So, for instance, we can feel “fear and confidence and
appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain” too much
or too little.30 He argues that we are to feel our passions toward the right
person, to the right extent, and at the right time. Moreover, intentions are
essential for moral acts, and so acting on the right motive, and in the right
way, also are crucial.31 Additionally, an agent needs knowledge, must
choose the acts for their own sake, and perform them from a “firm and
unchangeable character.”32 But, these passions, intentions, and knowledge
all require intentionality, which undermines physicalism for becoming mor-
ally virtuous.
However, now let me consider two counterexamples to my claims that
physicalism undermines sanctification. First, some could suggest that while
people like Murphy endorse an ontologically reductive physicalism, still it is
conceivable that on a “pluralistic” physicalism, mental states and intentional-
ity could be emergent properties of the brain in a suitably complex structure.
That is to say, on such a view, there could be real, irreducible intentionality

and mental states.
As reasonable as it might seem to suggest this alternative, I do not think it
will suffice to overcome the problems I have surfaced. For even if we have
such states and intentionality, there will be nothing real that can have or use
them. There is not a duality of substances on physicalism; there is just the
brain, not an irreducible mind (or soul). In that case, how would a physical
brain interact with, much less use, these nonphysical states? The quali-
ties involved in interpersonal relationships (and propositional knowledge)
involve more than just the mere existence of mental states in us that genuinely
are about their intended objects. They also require our being able to use them
in various ways, such as in my example of getting to know my wife. On the
basis of my experiences of her, I can form concepts and thoughts of what she
is like, and then, with more evidential support, I can form and accept a belief
that she is indeed (for instance) a very compassionate and accepting person.
The same abilities to use these states with their intentionality are involved
in growing in relationship with the Lord. In a crucially important way, I get
to know the Lord through reading Scripture, which involves my experiencing
the words in the text and then thinking (meditating) about them. I address my
thoughts and desires to him through prayer, and I get to experience his plea-
sure as I obey and please him (e.g., John 14:21). I have experienced events
that I recognize as answers to prayer, which demonstrate his presence and
care. Furthermore, in keeping with the examples and themes we observed
earlier from Scripture, I have experienced God’s speaking intimately with
me, through his guidance in my studies and in his personalizing his love for
me. Yet, all these examples involve my being able not merely to have, but
also to use, these mental states and their intentionality in order to get to know
the Lord better and better.
Moreover, there is a related problem. Interpersonal relationships require
time to develop. Yet, without an essential nature (i.e., a soul), how can we
remain the same through time and change, including growth in Christlike-
ness? Christian physicalists, such as Joel Green, realize this problem, and so
they must have another basis for our strict sameness (or numerical identity)
of person through the process of sanctification. For on an ontologically reduc-
tive physicalism (or even a pluralistic version in which there are emergent
mental properties and intentionality), it seems we are constantly changing,
simply because the body’s parts are constantly changing. Even the brain itself
is not the same through time, for it can undergo (for instance) changes in
levels of serotonin, or new “grooves” can be developed as new psychological
habits are cultivated.
It seems to me that Green’s solution is the most obvious option for
Christian physicalists, who lack any essential natures to which to appeal
226 R. Scott Smith
to ground personal identity. Green argues that instead of sameness of soul,

what grounds our personal identity through change is the sameness of our
individual narratives. Our narratives tell the story of our respective lives, and
the unity we have is that of an embodied character. Our story unfolds and
develops, which tells the story of our growth in Christlikeness. Moreover,
for Green, while a “mystery,” our personhood is preserved in Christ or with
Christ. He thinks “the relationality and narrativity that constitute who I am
are able to exist apart from neural correlates and embodiment only insofar
as they are preserved in God’s own being, in anticipation of new creation.”33
So, upon death, God remembers and then unites our story with a resurrected
body. Thus, we can inherit eternal life.
It surely is true that our narrative tells the story of our lives. Yet, on a
physicalist ontology, what kind of thing is a narrative? It seems it would be a
bundle of sentences (which are sense perceptible) that I, as the main author of
my story, and others ascribe to me. Still, can a narrative itself remain the same
through time and change, given that it too is physical? It seems it cannot; the
sentences are changing. More and more ascriptions are added as I continue to
live, and thus the whole narrative would have different properties than it did
before. Thus, my narrative is not the same through change, and therefore it
cannot be the basis for my remaining the same through change, even if that is
into Christlikeness. Change (including into Christlikeness) presupposes that
there is a fundamental, even essential, sameness to the person, lest there not
be growth in sanctification, but only succession and replacement of many
persons as the narrative changes.34
As the second counterexample to my claim that physicalism undermines
sanctification, consider Murphy’s suggestion that God communicates with us
through the quantum level of our brains.35 If so, then it might seem that com-
munication and relationships could take place. Yet, whatever else quantum-
level phenomena are, for her they must fit within ontologically reductive
physicalism. Accordingly, there will not be any real intentionality. Thus,
based upon what I have argued already, quantum phenomena simply will not
be able to supply the needed ontological resources for relationships, knowl-
edge, and moral transformation, all of which are vital for our sanctification.
CONCLUSION
I do not see Christian physicalists suggesting that sanctification is somehow

unnecessary, or a relic of bygone, Greek, dualistic thinking. Rather, they want to
uphold that crucial doctrine and see us engage in the practices needed to grow in
Christlikeness. This good goal is well-intended, but I have argued that physical-
ism undermines sanctification. Indeed, it seems that on physicalism, we would
be like philosophical zombies. That is, though we would be alive, yet we would
lack any conscious experiences, as well as thoughts, beliefs, and other such
states.36 Such creatures, however, clearly cannot have and enjoy interpersonal
relationships or knowledge, or grow in moral transformation. Thus, at least in
these crucial respects, physicalism seems incompatible with Christianity.
NOTES
1. All Scripture references are from New American Standard Bible (Anaheim,
CA: Foundation Press Publications, 1995).
2. St. Augustine, De Animae Quantitate 13.22. See also De Civitate Dei V.10
(e.g., ch. 6). On the soul being present throughout the body, see On the Immortality
of the Soul 16.25.
3. See, for example, Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 1.Q75.
4. See the discussion in J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae, Body & Soul (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 206.
5. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, book I, chapter 15.2, 3.
6. See also J. P. Moreland, The Recalcitrant Image Dei: Human Persons and the
Failure of Naturalism (London: SCM Press, 2009).
7. It seems that some experiences, like a painful feeling, might not be of or about
something.
8. See Nancey Murphy and Warren Brown, Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?
Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free
Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 47–48, where she provides five distinc-
tions (methodological, epistemological, causal, ontological, and atomist) concerning
the “many faces of reductionism.”
9. Murphy and Brown, 78–84.
10. Nancey Murphy, Anglo-American Postmodernity (Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 1997), 21.
11. Murphy, Anglo-American Postmodernity, 24. See also Did My Neurons Make
Me Do It? generally, 28–29, 151, 181–90; and specifically on “forms of life,” 165,
187; and “language games” 165, 181–85, 188, 190.
12. Murphy, Anglo-American Postmodernity, 199.
13. See Nancey Murphy, “Human Nature: Historical, Scientific, and Religious
Issues,” in Whatever Happened to the Soul? ed. Warren S. Brown, et al. (Minneapolis,
MN: Fortress Press, 1998), 18, where she argues against a need for humans to have a soul.
14. Murphy, “Human Nature,” 18.
15. Ibid., xiii. See also her Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? chapter 1.
16. Nancey Murphy, Beyond Liberalism & Fundamentalism: How Modern and
Postmodern Philosophy Set the Theological Agenda, ed. Werner H. Kelber (Harrris-
burg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), 93.
17. Murphy, Beyond Liberalism & Fundamentalism, 150.
18. See Nancey Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), 16–22. See also Joel B. Green, Body, Soul, and
228 R. Scott Smith
Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Aca-
demic, 2008).
19. Michael Tye, Ten Problems of Consciousness: A Representational Theory of
the Phenomenal Mind (Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books, 1995), 42–43.
20. For a more detailed discussion, see my Naturalism and Our Knowledge of
Reality (Farnham, UK: Ashgate/Routledge, 2012), chapters 1 and 2.
21. Fred Dretske, another naturalist, has responded to my objection that if “knowl-
edge that x (some external object) is f is a reliably caused belief of x that it is f (a
belief that is caused by the information that x is f), then you don’t have to ‘traverse’
the causal chain resulting in the belief in order to have knowledge of the external
cause. All that is required is that the belief, in fact, be the result of some reliable
process” (e-mail message to author, Febraury 10, 2007). Dretske elaborates that one
is not directly aware of what is going on in one’s head. However, he claims we are
directly aware of the external object, for “information [about the tree] . . . is being
transferred in the perceptual process to the representation (experience) of the [tree]”
(op. cit.). In response, there is some truth to his reliabilism; our cognitive faculties
generally do function reliably in appropriate circumstances. Nevertheless, Dretske’s
reply does not seem to alleviate the problems I have raised against causal chain
accounts of intentionality.
22. Daniel C. Dennett, “Dennett, Daniel C.,” in A Companion to the Philosophy of
Mind: Blackwell Companions to Philosophy, ed. Samuel Guttenplan (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1994), 239 (emphasis in original).
23. Dennett, “Dennett, Daniel C.,” 239.
24. Daniel Dennett, The Intentional Stance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), 239.
25. Dallas Willard, “Knowledge and Naturalism,” in Naturalism: A Critical Analy-
sis, ed. J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig (New York: Routledge, 1999), 40.
26. Dennett, “Dennett, Daniel C.,” 242.
27. Knowledge by acquaintance also seems to dissolve, for there will not be any
experiences that are of something. Likewise, know-how (practical knowledge of how
to do something) will not work, for it too seems to require making observations, form-
ing beliefs about how to accomplish a task (e.g., how to purchase a train ticket from
a vending machine), and so on, all of which require intentionality.
28. For a more complete treatment of this topic, see my In Search of Moral Knowl-
edge: Overcoming the Fact-Value Dichotomy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press,
2014), chapters 5–6, and 7 (on Christine Korsgaard).
29. In Search of Moral Knowledge, Kindle locations 770–74.
30. Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. David Ross, rev. by J. L. Ackrill, et
al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), book II.6, 38.
31. Nicomachean Ethics, book II.6, 9.
32. Nicomachean Ethics, book II.4, 34.
33. Green, 180.
34. Of course, this also has the disastrous result that we will not be able to inherit
life everlasting.
35. Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? 131–32.
36. See Robert Kirk, “Zombies,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2015),
accessed April 13, 2017, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/
Dennett, Daniel C. “Dennett, Daniel C.” In A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind:

Blackwell Companions to Philosophy, edited by Samuel Guttenplan, 236–43.
Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1994.
———. The Intentional Stance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990.
Green, Joel B. Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible.
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008.
Moreland, J. P. The Recalcitrant Image Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Natu-
ralism. London: SCM Press, 2009.
Moreland, J. P., and Scott Rae. Body & Soul. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press,
2000.
Murphy, Nancey. Anglo-American Postmodernity. Boudler, CO: Westview Press,
1997.
———. Beyond Liberalism & Fundamentalism: How Modern and Postmodern Phi-
losophy Set the Theological Agenda, edited by Werner H. Kelber. Harrisburg, PA:
Trinity Press International, 1996.
Murphy, Nancey, and Warren Brown. Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? Philo-
sophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will.
Smith, R. Scott. In Search of Moral Knowledge: Overcoming the Fact-Value Dichot-
omy. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014.
———. Naturalism and Our Knowledge of Reality. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012.
Tye, Michael. Ten Problems of Consciousness: A Representational Theory of the
Phenomenal Mind. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books, 1995.
Willard, Dallas. “Knowledge and Naturalism.” In Naturalism: A Critical Analysis,
edited by J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Chapter 12
Neuroscience, Spiritual
Formation, and Bodily Souls
A Critique of Christian Physicalism
Brandon Rickabaugh and C. Stephen Evans
The link between human nature and human flourishing is undeniable. “A

healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit”
(Matt. 7:18). The ontology of the human person will, therefore, ground the
nature of human flourishing and thereby sanctification. Spiritual formation
is the area of Christian theology that studies sanctification, the spirit-guided
process whereby disciples of Jesus are formed into the image of Jesus (Rom.
8:28–29; 2 Cor. 3:18; 2 Peter 3:18).1 Talk of such transformation perme-
ates the New Testament.2 As a natural part of salvation, spiritual formation
includes every aspect of our being, “spirit, soul, and body” (1 Thess. 5:23–
24), as it is the whole person that is sanctified.3 Until the nineteenth century,
there was an overwhelming consensus among Christian thinkers that some
form of mind-body (or soul-body) dualism is true of human beings. Recently,
that consensus has eroded, and with it the availability of a shared body of
knowledge about spiritual formation.4
Two views dominate this discussion. Substance dualism (hereafter referred
to as dualism) is the thesis that we consist of soul and body. The following
distinction is helpful:
Minimal Dualism: The self and its body are distinct entities.5
Significant Minimal Dualism: The self and its body are distinct entities, while
the self is an agent with causal powers such that it can affect the physical world
and be affected by that world.6
Christian dualists are at least committed to Significant Minimal Dualism.

According to the alternative view, Christian physicalism, we are physical
bodies or at least parts of physical bodies, like the brain and central nervous
system.7 Some Christian physicalists hold that these physical bodies have
231
232 Brandon Rickabaugh and C. Stephen Evans
nonphysical emergent properties. Some Christian physicalists argue that

dualism is incompatible with central elements of spiritual formation. Neuro-
scientist Warren Brown and psychologist Brad Strawn offer the only substan-
tive account of spiritual formation from the view of Christian physicalism and
its accompanying objections to dualism.8 Hence, it is on their arguments that
this chapter focuses.
Although some argue that dualism is the biblical backdrop which informs
and makes intelligible Christian spiritual formation, Brown and Strawn argue
that contemporary neuroscience proves this false while supporting Christian
physicalism.9 On their view, spiritual formation is illuminated by a set of
neuroscientific data. This data, they claim, supports a view of spiritual for-
mation that requires special attention to the physical nature of our spiritual
life. As such, it emphasizes our embodiment and neurological and social
development, which they claim is incompatible with dualism.10 Call this the
incompatibility thesis.
We argue that Brown and Strawn fail to support their incompatibility the-
sis. Additionally, we argue that Christian physicalism stands in tension with
important philosophical and theological foundations of Christian spiritual
formation. In doing so, we offer a specific form of dualism, the bodily soul
view, and explain how this view illuminates the importance of embodiment,
our neurological and social development, and hence the important physical
aspects of Christian spiritual formation.
WHY DUALISM IS COMPATIBLE WITH

EMBODIED SPIRITUAL FORMATION
Just how is dualism supposed to be incompatible with a neuroscientifically

informed account of spiritual formation? The strongest statement of the
incompatibility thesis is one of logical impossibility. This view is impossible
to defend for one simple reason: there is no logical contradiction between
dualism and the neuroscientific data. The truth of dualism and the importance
of the physical nature of our spiritual life do not entail a contradiction. God
could have created natural laws uniting soul and body, such that neuroscience
studies the bodily aspects of this unity. Likewise, the incompatibility thesis
cannot be stated in terms of metaphysical impossibility. This thesis entails
that God could not create a world where dualism is true and the neuroscien-
tific data of this world obtain. That is a considerable constraint on God’s cre-
ative capacity. This strikes us as highly implausible, and Brown and Strawn
do not give us reason to think otherwise. Hence, the incompatibility thesis
can make only the much weaker claim, that the conjunction of dualism and
the neuroscientific data is improbable or less probable than the conjunction
Neuroscience, Spiritual Formation, and Bodily Souls 233
of Christian physicalism and the neuroscientific data. So, how do they defend
this thesis?
We must recognize that Christian physicalists cannot make use of popular
objections to dualism, especially the conservation of energy11 and causal clo-
sure arguments, which rely on an in-principle rejection of causation between
the physical and the nonphysical and the causal closure of the physical. Chris-
tianity is necessarily committed to causation between the nonphysical and the
physical, at least with respect to God and his creation.12 Sanctification, for
example, requires the causal interaction of the Holy Spirit with human per-
sons (e.g., Gal. 5:16–24). Hence, Brown and Strawn must object to dualism
in other ways, to which we now turn.
WHAT HAS DUALISM TO DO WITH

GNOSTICISM AND INDIVIDUALISM?
The main objection from Brown and Strawn is that dualism leads to
Gnosticism, which is incompatible with biblical and neuroscientific data.
Gnosticism, they explain, is the view that the material world is evil, while
nonmaterial reality is good. Human souls are saved from this material world
only by embracing the fact that we belong in a heavenly realm of light.13 “The
inward focus on the soul, fostered by dualism,” they say, “creates a strong
magnet drawing modern religious perspectives almost inevitably toward
Gnosticism.”14 From this they conclude that dualism is false.
We find this objection unconvincing. Brown and Strawn offer no empiri-
cal support for this hypothesis, much less an explanation as to how dualism
leads “almost inevitably” to Gnosticism. It isn’t clear what is their argu-
ment, as they can be read in several ways. If taken in the anthropological
or psychological sense, their conclusion does not follow. That many people
believe or are caused to believe x does not tell us if x is true or false, or if x
is unreasonable to hold. Furthermore, conflicting empirical evidence is easy
to furnish. After surveying the main Christian proponents of dualism, one is
hard-pressed to find a single Gnostic among them. Instead, we find outright
rejections of Gnosticism. For example, Dallas Willard, a dualist and spiritual
formation scholar, explicitly rejects the Gnostic view that what is immaterial
and spiritual is inherently good, while the body and other material things are
inherently bad.15 On Willard’s view, the soul and body are both in a ruined
condition in need of redemption.16 The body is central to Willard’s detailed
account of how the entire person is sanctified in Christ.17
If taken in the philosophical sense, the Gnostic thesis faces other problems.
First, dualism is not and does not entail a thesis about what is or is not valu-
able, the nature of sanctification or salvation. Brown and Strawn admit that
we cannot equate dualism with Gnosticism.18 Contra Gnosticism, Christian

dualists hold a very high view of the body. Charles Taliaferro, for example,
argues that given dualism, embodiment allows for the exercise of six types of
virtue: sensory, agency, constitutional, epistemic, structural, and affective.19
Richard Swinburne argues that embodiment makes possible great goods that
souls otherwise couldn’t have, such as the ability of free choice between good
and evil and the ability to influence others and the inanimate world.20 Howard
Robinson defends a robust view of the soul’s dependence on the brain and
body for the great good of psychological development.21 Contrary to what
Christian physicalists claim, Christian dualism maintains that the telos of the
human soul, as created by God, is embodiment.22 This alone entails the rejec-
tion of Gnosticism.
Of course, it is true that dualists have a history of valuing the soul more
than the body. Augustine considers the soul as a much higher degree of real-
ity and value than the body, with the soul surpassed only by God.23 However,
this does not mean that Augustine holds a low view of the body. That one
takes x to be more valuable than y does not entail that y is not of great value.
One could value their spouse more than their parents, and yet maintain a very
high value of their parents. The Christian physicalist surely admits this when
valuing God above creation although highly valuing creation.
Additionally, Brown and Strawn argue that belief in dualism leads to indi-
vidualism, as dualists look inwardly at the soul rather than outwardly toward
God and others. Like their previous Gnostic objection, Brown and Strawn fail
to show a necessary connection between dualism and individualism. Even if
there were a correlation, it would not follow that holding dualism leads to
indifference toward others, the natural world, or historical events. Consider
Kierkegaard, who, although a dualist, does not think of the self as merely a
mental substance. For Kierkegaard, the self is a kind of synthesis of contrast-
ing elements—finitude with infinitude, necessity with possibility. Human
selves are a work in progress, involved in making themselves the persons
they become, and doing so always in relationship to others. Far from being an
individualist, Kierkegaard understands that we all are who we are by virtue of
the relationships with others. He is interested in helping individuals develop
a relation to God which relativizes those human relationships.24 It is just false
that dualism qua dualism leads to individualism.
Lastly, there are more plausible accounts of the turn away from embodi-
ment and toward individualism that do not place the blame on dualism. Some
have argued that the turn toward individualism is the result of theologians
and then pastors abandoning the soul, which paved the way for the contem-
porary mental health movement.25 This may be overstated, but it is relevant.
Additionally, it seems far more plausible that the problem of contemporary
individualism is with the conception of salvation as mere forgiveness of
sins. Willard points out that such a view makes Paul’s statement that we are
“saved by his [Jesus’s] life” (Rom. 5:10) unintelligible. Willard observes,
“How can we be saved by his life when we believe salvation comes from
his death alone? So if we concentrate on such theories exclusively, the body
and therefore the concrete life we find ourselves in are lost to the redemption
process.”26
In fact, we find dualists, such as Willard, holding the exact opposite of
Gnosticism and individualism.
Spirituality in human beings is not an extra or “superior” mode of existence. It’s

not a hidden stream of separate reality, a separate life running parallel to our
bodily existence. It does not consist of special “inward” acts even though it has
an inner aspect. It is, rather, a relationship of our embodied selves to God that
has the natural and irrepressible effect of making us alive to the Kingdom of
God—here and now in the material world.27
The problem of individualism, escapism and rejection of embodiment is

solved, not by rejecting dualism, but by embracing the Gospel of the King-
dom of God, that God’s project of redemption has come and we are invited
into that life of Kingdom community here and now. The Gnostic and indi-
vidualistic objections to dualism are both unsupported, and fail to diagnose
the real problem. Rejecting dualism isn’t the solution, as dualism isn’t the
problem.
WHERE IS THIS SOUL OF THE GAPS?
The main argument from neuroscience proffered by Brown and Strawn

against dualism is a soul-of-the-gaps objection. They write,
However, three centuries ago, Descartes did not have access to what is known in
modern neurology. Thus, he could not imagine how it could be that matter—that
is, physical bodies and brains—could do anything rational or intelligent. So he
concluded that these human capacities must be due to a nonmaterial thing.28
“Descartes,” say Brown and Strawn, “was forced to the conclusion that we
must have a nonmaterial soul due to the lack of knowledge during his time
of the functioning of the human brain.”29 Brown and Strawn seem unaware
of Descartes’s extensive anatomy and physiology research.30 Descartes knew
quite well that mental states often depend on brain states.
Regardless, this soul-of-the-gaps objection fails to understand why Des-
cartes and many others are dualists. Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Butler,
and Reid held dualism in virtue of being aware of themselves from the
first-person perspective as not reducible to or identical to their body.31 Others,

such as Aristotle and Aquinas, arrived at different kinds of dualism by ana-
lyzing positive arguments for the soul. After a detailed look at the literature,
Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro conclude, “There is not the least bit of
evidence for the idea that they arrived at their belief in the soul’s existence
after failing to explain various experiences in terms of what goes on in the
physical world.”32
It is the awareness of self and metaphysical arguments that motivate dual-
ism. This accords well with the prevailing view among cognitive scientists
that dualism is a widespread, pretheoretical belief, shared across cultures, and
developed in infancy.33 This shouldn’t be the case if dualism is simply main-
tained out of ignorance. We are, as Paul Bloom says, “natural Cartesians.”34
Moreover, this soul-of-the-gaps objection presumes that dualists are igno-
rant of the neurosciences. This is certainly not the case today. Nobel prize
winning neuroscientist John C. Eccles defended dualism,35 as did Nobel
Prize winning physicist, Eugene Wigner.36 Likewise, neuroscientists Wilder
Penfield37 and Matthew Stanford,38 research psychiatrist Jeffery Schwartz,39
and psychologists Nancy Duvall,40 Todd W. Hall,41 Jeffrey H. Boyd,42 Eric
L. Johnson,43 Sherwood Cole,44 and Stephen Greggo are all dualists who
take embodiment seriously.45 Many dualists conversant with the relevant
neuroscience make their case from neuroscientific data.46 Even nondualists
begrudgingly recognize that the neurosciences are often based on the con-
ceptual framework of dualism.47 Moreover, several dualists, after analyzing
the data, argue that neuroscience fails to support physicalism over dualism.48
While one might disagree with their arguments, one cannot claim these dual-
ists are neurologically ignorant. It is simply false that dualism is the result of
neuroscientific ignorance or soul-of-the-gaps reasoning.
Finally, this objection presumes, quite prematurely, that neuroscience has
somehow undermined dualism. There is a growing skepticism, even among
neuroscientists, about inflated claims from neuroscience.49 This is certainly
true regarding philosophical issues like free will and the mind-body prob-
lem.50 Skepticism aside, several nonreductive physicalists, in accord with
dualists, are convinced that even a complete understanding of all the physical
facts about the universe could not explain consciousness. One reason for this
is what Joseph Levine calls the explanatory gap, our inability to provide or
even comprehend a plausible explanation of how consciousness could fully
depend upon a nonconscious, physical substrate.51 David Chalmers explains,
“If this is right, the fact that consciousness accompanies a given physical
process is a further fact not explainable simply by telling the story about the
physical facts. In a sense, the accompaniment must be taken as brute.”52
Secondly, nonreductive physicalists are in widespread disagreement over
how to explain consciousness. This can be seen in the “new mysterians,”
who hold that although materialism must be true, we will never understand
how it could be true.53 Moreover, the recent turn toward panpsychism and
panprotopsychism, which view consciousness as an irreducible, fundamental
feature of reality, belies the devoted confidence of nonreductive physicalists
who take neuroscience to fully explain consciousness. Neuroscience is far
from proving physicalism or disproving dualism.
Curiously, Brown and Strawn fail to address the work of any dualist we’ve
mentioned, much less interact with their arguments. How can one make the
claims Brown and Strawn have about a view they don’t seem to have seri-
ously researched? Ironically, it is out of their own ignorance that Brown and
Strawn presume dualism to be held out of ignorance or a soul-of-the-gaps
thesis.
NO, NEUROSCIENCE HASN’T EXORCIZED THE SOUL
Brown and Strawn offer two types of argument from neuroscience against
dualism. The first is that dualism is committed to a disembodied view of spiri-
tual formation, which is incompatible with neuroscientific findings. Accord-
ing to Brown and Strawn, “We are formed into mature, virtuous, and wise
persons, not by some disembodied mystical process, but by life together in
a body of persons.”54 The assumption here is that dualism is somehow com-
mitted to a disembodied mystical process of spiritual formation. Of course,
historically some dualists have embraced a mystical process of spiritual
formation that denigrates the body. Ascetic Christians, such as the Desert
Fathers, are often cited as examples. However, such a sweeping claim is
naïve. In his seminal work on views of the body in early Christianity, Peter
Brown observes,
Yet to describe ascetic thought as “dualist” and motivated by hatred of the

body, is to miss its most novel and its most poignant aspect. Seldom, in ancient
thought, had the body been seen as more deeply implicated in the transformation
of the soul; and never was it made to bear so heavy a burden. For the Desert
Fathers, the body was not an irrelevant part of the human person, that should, as
it were, be “put in brackets” . . . It was, rather, grippingly present to the monk: he
was to speak of it as “this body, that God has afforded me, as a field to cultivate,
where I might work and become rich . . . In the desert tradition, the body was
allowed to become the discreet mentor of the proud soul.55
Dualism didn’t always or even commonly lead to a mystical disembodied

process. Most dualists embraced the body and its positive role in spiritual
formation. However, even if some Christian dualists did neglect the body,
a historical connection is not a logical connection. Brown and Strawn fail
to demonstrate a logical link between dualism and a mystical disembodied

approach to spiritual formation. Therefore, we have no reason to think that
dualism must embrace a disembodied notion of spiritual formation.
While we can think of no contemporary Christian dualists who adopt such
a view, there are many Christian dualists who reject it. For example, spiritual
disciplines, a historic cornerstone of Christian spiritual formation, are not dis-
embodied mystical processes.56 J. P. Moreland, who is as dualist as anyone,
explains this well:
A Christian spiritual discipline is a repeated bodily practice, done over and over
again, in dependence on the Holy Spirit and under the direction of Jesus and
other wise teachers in his way, to enable one to get good at certain things in life
that one cannot learn by direct effort.57
Willard arranges spiritual disciplines into two categories: abstinence/detach-

ment (solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, sacrifice) and
engagement (study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, con-
fession, submission).58 These disciplines, says Willard, “essentially involve
bodily behaviors” as “whatever is purely mental cannot transform the self.”59
This is an outright rejection of a disembodied mystical process.
The second argument from Brown and Strawn is that neuroscience has
made certain discoveries that present an understanding of spiritual growth
that is incompatible with dualism. These discoveries support three theses.
Developmental Thesis: Spiritual formation is a process that continues through

adulthood.60
Interpersonal Thesis: Spiritual formation takes place in virtue of interpersonal
interactions such as imitation, shared attention, attachment, empathy, language,
and story.
Bodily Process Thesis: Human characteristics, such as rationality, relationality,
morality, and religiousness are the outcome of the functioning of our bodies and
brains, not a nonmaterial soul or mind.61
Let’s begin with the developmental thesis. That sanctification is a gradual

process has been known for quite some time (2 Cor. 4:16; Gal. 4:19), and is
recognized by dualists.62 It isn’t clear how these are incompatible, and Brown
and Strawn present no argument for us to analyze. Perhaps this objection is
motivated by presuming that a soul is fully formed once it comes into exis-
tence and therefore cannot develop. But why should the dualist embrace this?
There is nothing contradictory in holding that the soul psychologically devel-
ops in conjunction with the body over its lifetime. While most dualists hold
that the soul is mereologically simple, as it has no parts, the soul is complex
with respect to its modes or properties and causal powers. These features are
what change as the person, body and soul, matures.63 Hence, there is nothing
about dualism that is incompatible with the developmental thesis.
Likewise, it is not at all clear how dualism is incompatible with the inter-
personal thesis. Again, Brown and Strawn merely assert this incompatibility
without explanation or argument. Rather, they presume that dualism leads to
individualism, which undermines the importance of interpersonal relations
for spiritual formation. However, we have shown that dualism does not nec-
essarily lead to individualism. Moreover, there is nothing inconsistent about
the dualist holding that the ontology of the soul is such that we require inter-
personal relationships in order to grow spiritually.64 Consequently, dualism is
not incompatible with the interpersonal thesis.
The bodily process thesis, or something like it, is popular among Christian
physicalists when objecting to dualism. The strength of this objection comes
from what “the outcome of the functioning of our bodies and brains” means
exactly. Presumably, that will be determined by the neurological evidence.
Here are some examples they discuss.
Rationality: fMRI studies show that brain activity increases in specific areas of
the brain in conjunction with certain mental acts: the left side of the cerebral
cortex when asked to perform language tasks, different but overlapping areas of
the left cerebral cortex when listening to someone talk, and a different pattern
of cerebral cortex areas when solving mathematical problems.
Relationality: fMRI studies show that a participant’s subjective experience of
being shocked triggered a very similar pattern of brain activity that is triggered
when they expect their friend to be shocked.
Morality: fMRI studies show that the more complexity the moral reasoning the
more intense is the brain activity in a particular region of the brain. Individu-
als with damage to the lower middle portions of their frontal lobes exhibit an
inability to use moral guidelines.
Religiousness: According to fMRI studies, when Buddhist monks and Catho-
lic nuns reported reaching a state of “oneness” during meditation there was
increased frontal lobe activity, and decreased right parietal lobe activity. Similar
studies showed that when speaking in tongues activity in the frontal lobes and
left temporal lobe decreased significantly.
From these studies, among others they mention, Brown and Strawn make
the following conclusions: acts of rationality are “based on” and are “an
outcome of” patterns of brain activity;65 “interpersonal empathy is based
on mirroring the emotional experience of the other’s pain within your own
brain”;66 morality is based on brain activity; and “religious states are associ-
ated with identifiable changes in the distribution of brain activity.”67 Taken
together, Brown and Strawn conclude that rationality, relationality, morality,
and religiousness are outcomes of the functioning of our bodies and brains,
not a soul or mind.
Much can be said in reply to these kinds of arguments. First, these studies
only show close correlations between specific mental states and localized
brain states. This correlation may be evidence of a causal interaction between
mental states and brain states. However, the direction of causation is by no
means always clear; in some cases, it looks like the causal relation may be
from the mental state to the brain state. However, in cases where mental states
do seem dependent on brain states, there is no reason for a dualist to resist
such claims. So, when Brown and Strawn speak of certain mental states as
“based on” or “an outcome of” certain brain states, we can only take them
to mean that there is a causal or dependence relation between these mental
states and these brain states. However, almost every dualist affirms this kind
of dependence and interaction. Although neuroscience has helped us under-
stand how the mind depends on the brain in some cases, that biology plays
a role in our thoughts and behavior was known by the ancient Hebrews and
first-century Christians.68
Brown and Strawn seem to assume that if dualism is true then the mind
should not depend on the brain in any way. However, minimal dualism
accepts the possibility that such dependence may be pervasive. However, the
fact that mental states may depend on brain states does not show that they are
identical. Nor does it show that there is no dependence in the other direction.
No discoveries in neuroscience show that mental states play no important
causal role in our lives. In fact, if neuroscience did show anything like that,
it would undermine the kind of “nonreductive physicalism” Christian physi-
calists typically affirm. If mental states are completely explicable in terms of
brain activity, then it is hard to see how one could resist a reductive form of
physicalism.
Physicalists often fail to recognize the logical relations that hold between
self-conscious beings and their bodies. For example, it does not follow from
any neuroscientific findings that because the brain is used to do certain things
that the brain is what does those things. As Roderick Chisholm observes,
Many have assumed—quite obviously incorrectly—that from the fact that one
thinks by means of the brain, it follows logically that it is the brain that thinks.
We walk by means of our feet, but our feet do not walk in the sense we do (if
they did, then they would have feet).69
Even ardent antidualist Nancey Murphy admits that current neurological

evidence does not rule out dualism.70 The dualist can always interpret such
studies as showing that the nature of the soul is such, that while embodied, it
is dependent on the brain in a variety of ways. Significant minimal dualism
is completely open to whatever causal dependence is supported by the evi-
dence. The only way neuroscience could disprove this kind of dualism would
be to prove epiphenomenalism. But as one of us has argued elsewhere, the

discovery that the mind is epiphenomenal would imply that our experience of
ourselves as conscious agents is illusory. However, this cannot be the case,
as all of science, including neuroscience, depends on our self-understanding
as conscious agents.71
PROBLEMS FOR CHRISTIAN PHYSICALISM

AND SPIRITUAL FORMATION
So far, we have shown that each objection from Brown and Strawn fails to
undermine dualism in favor of Christian physicalism. In the following sec-
tion, we demonstrate how the Christian physicalism of Brown and Strawn
is incompatible with certain theological and philosophical preconditions of
spiritual formation theory and practice.
First, an observation: it isn’t clear how the view of spiritual formation
that Brown and Strawn present is distinctively Christian, or Christian at all.
For example, their view lacks a robust role for the Holy Spirit’s active role
in sanctification. The clear teaching of scripture is that the Holy Spirit is the
empowering/transformational agent of ongoing sanctification (e.g., 1 Cor.
6:11; Gal. 5:16–24; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2). Hence, any account of spiri-
tual formation must be grounded in the sanctifying activity of the Holy Spirit.
Yet, Brown and Strawn fail to attribute any activity to the Holy Spirit. All the
work is done by church bodies functioning as self-forming systems, networks
of communication and interaction between persons who imitate those who
imitate Christ. However, it is in partaking of and participating in the divine
nature—not the mere moral influence of a church body—that the believer is
sanctified (2 Peter 1:4; see also 1 Cor. 1:9). It is entirely possible for their
account of sanctification that God does not even exist. Of course, this needn’t
be the case for all Christian physicalist accounts. It seems to be produced by
an overemphasis on a purely scientific, rather than a scientifically informed,
account of spiritual formation.
Christian Physicalism’s Fragmented Persons

According to Brown and Strawn, Christian physicalism holds that, as bodies,
we have a single, unified nature.72 However, we will argue that their ontol-
ogy of the human person is neither holistic, unified, nor substantial. Rather, it
implies we are biological aggregates. Consequently, their view cannot ground
central features of human persons like persistence, agency, and the unity of
consciousness, each of which is necessary for any account of Christian spiri-
tual formation.
Their account in the chapter titled “How Bodies Become Persons” is

often unclear, moving between talk of the person, the brain, and the human
mind, each of which are characterized as having a self-organizing nature.73
Elsewhere, they state that a person is “a uniquely organized pattern that is
dynamic in its developmental process of self-organization”74 and that, “we
human beings are also complex dynamical systems.”75 They seem to reject
the self as a substance, a genuine unified entity, and identify the self as a
function or process.
Brown and Strawn offer two pictures of the self. They maintain that we are
wholly physical bodies. Yet, they also assert that we are a function or process.
It isn’t clear how both descriptions can be correct. But suppose we assume
that the human person is a wholly physical body and that such a body is just a
collection of complex processes and functions. It is not clear how such a view
can explain how humans can be subjects of consciousness and agents. Nor it
is clear how it can explain how humans can undergo psychological and spiri-
tual transformation. These facts pose significant problems for physicalists.76
As a biological organism, the human body undergoes an unrelenting pro-
cess of part replacement. Moment by moment your body absorbs new parts
and expels old parts. This takes place through respiration and metabolic
processes, among others. Strictly speaking, the body you had twenty seconds
ago is not exactly the same body you have now. It is similar, but not identical.
This is true for the same reason that the body you have now is not identical to
the body you had when you were an infant. If your body is nothing more than
a wholly physical biological organism comprised of various complex pro-
cesses and functions, then your body does not exist from one moment to the
next. Your body five minutes ago does not have all the parts that your body
has right now. It is fairly obvious that they are not identical. However, if you
are identical to your body, a wholly physical biological organism comprised
of various complex processes and functions, then you do not persist through
part replacement either. That is, the person that existed five minutes ago is not
the person you identify as yourself right now.
Like other Christian physicalists, Brown and Strawn hold that there are
features of your consciousness, agency, and psychology that are emergent
and thus not reducible to your body. So perhaps they can escape this objection
by holding that although the body to which you are identical does not persist,
the emergent properties that are a part of what comprises you do persist, and
so in some sense you do as well. But why think this is possible? If it is pos-
sible, this implies that the persisting entity is not wholly physical, since it has
nonphysical emergent properties that seem essential to it.
Consciousness, agency, and psychological change are features of an indi-
vidual person. Consciousness does not exist without a subject of conscious-
ness. The same is true for agency and psychological change. However, if the
body does not persist and the body is the person, then the consciousness and
agency of that person, that biological organism, does not persist. Likewise, if
the body I am identical to does not persist then there is literally nothing that
undergoes psychological change. Hence, emergent properties are not suffi-
cient to ground the persistence of a human person.
Consequently, Christian physicalism, at least the version of Brown and
Strawn, makes the notion of spiritual formation incoherent. Spiritual forma-
tion is a process that an individual person goes through. When a self grows
in patience or peace that self must persist through that change. If some other
thing replaces the self, then the initial self does not develop but passes out
of existence. A self that does not persist cannot undergo any transformation
at all. Ironically, like many Christian physicalists, Brown and Strawn present
Christian physicalism as a holistic and unified view of human persons, and
claim that dualists must reject this. However, as we have shown, the opposite
is true.
Interpersonal Knowledge, Phenomenal Consciousness, and

Christian Physicalism
Eternal life, and by extension spiritual formation, is characterized by Jesus as
knowledge of God (John 17:3). As one of us has argued elsewhere, the kind
of knowledge Jesus refers to here is an interpersonal knowledge, which is a
species of knowledge by acquaintance.77 To see this, consider the following
propositions:
a. Laura and Jan know that Jesus is the smartest person to have ever lived.
b. Laura and Jan know Jesus.
These two propositions express different kinds of knowledge. In (a) what

is known is a proposition about Jesus, that he is the smartest person to have
ever lived. However, in (b) what is known is not a proposition, but a person,
Jesus. Here is another way to understand how these two kinds of knowledge
are distinct. Suppose that Jan knows everything there is to know about Laura,
even though they’ve never met. Consider what happens when Jan spends the
day with Laura. Clearly Jan “gets to know” Laura in a way different from all
the facts that Jan knows about Laura. Jan gains interpersonal knowledge of
Laura in virtue of her experience of Laura, her knowledge by acquaintance
of Laura. This knowledge couldn’t have come from any more propositional
knowledge about Laura.
This kind of interpersonal knowledge by acquaintance is present in
instances of shared attention and interpersonal attachment between individu-
als, both of which Brown and Strawn recognize as of great developmental
importance.78 Moreover, the kind of knowledge present in many spiritual

formation practices is a type of intrapersonal self-knowledge, which is also
a species of knowledge by acquaintance. Knowing the truth that anger keeps
me from unity with God is vastly different than my experiential knowledge
of a lack of unity with God when I am angry. Consequently, knowledge
by acquaintance is a central feature of spiritual formation. However, we
argue that Christian physicalism is at odds with interpersonal knowledge by
acquaintance.
A prominent thought experiment many take seriously to undermine physi-
calism can be adapted for our purposes here.79 In Eleonore Stump’s version,
we are invited to consider Mary, a neuroscientist who is omniscient of the
scientific facts about interpersonal knowledge. However, Mary has never met
another person before. That is, Mary has never experienced interpersonal
knowledge. Imagine one day Mary is united with her biological mother who
loves her very much. For the first time, Mary will come to know what it is
like to be loved by another. Stump writes,
And this will be new for her, even if in her isolated state she had as complete
a scientific description as possible of what a human being feels like when she
senses that she is loved by someone else . . . Mary will also come to know what
it is like to be touched by someone else, to be surprised by someone else, to
ascertain someone else’s mood, to detect affect in the melody of someone else’s
voice, to match thought for thought in conversation, and so on.80
Mary will also come to know her mother—have knowledge of her

mother—in addition to knowing what it is like to know and experience her
mother.
Cases like this have proven extremely difficult for physicalism. We argue
this difficulty extends to Christian physicalism as well. If physicalism is true
then the physical facts about the world should exhaust all the facts about the
world. Hence, if one knows all the physical facts about interpersonal knowl-
edge, then there are no further facts one can know regarding interpersonal
knowledge. However, this is not what happens in Mary-type thought experi-
ments. Mary knows all the physical facts about interpersonal knowledge,
however, she still comes to know something new when she meets a person,
her mother, for the first time. That is, the physical facts are not the only facts.
Hence, physicalism is false.
Consider again the intrapersonal self-knowledge mentioned earlier. This
kind of knowledge is necessarily first-person and cannot be known through
third-person scientific inquiry. I can read in the Bible or learn from a friend
that my anger keeps me from full unity with God, but that is not sufficient
or even necessary for me to attend to the phenomenology of feeling God’s
distance from me in my anger. That knowledge I gain in my first-person

experience, not through third-person propositional knowledge. But the kind
of knowledge that Brown and Strawn focus on and ground their view of spiri-
tual formation in is third-person scientific knowledge. That is, their account
of spiritual formation does not have, and can’t seem to gain, the recourses
to account for the kind of self-knowledge involved in important aspects of
spiritual formation.
Christian Physicalism and the Nature of Emotions

Lastly, we wish to draw attention to the metaphysics of emotion that Brown
and Strawn advance. This is significant, as emotions have been taken as a sig-
nificant aspect of spiritual formation. Jesus, for example, begins his Sermon
on the Mount with a profound treatment of anger and contempt. He does so
as these complex mental states, including emotions, are at the ground floor of
what needs to be transformed in us. Although Brown and Strawn recognize
that emotions are an important part of spiritual formation, their account of
emotions faces difficult problems.
According to Brown and Strawn, “Emotions are continuous brain-body
adjustments and attunements to our current situation, most particularly our
social situation.”81 They continue with the following: “they [emotions] are
by-products of automatic bodily adjustments to the situation that, when
experienced consciously, provide information about the nature of our current
relationship to the social surrounding.82 In a later chapter, Brown and Strawn
state,
[W]e are not saying that subjective, inner experiences and emotions are not
important in the Christian life. Rather, emotions and feelings are bodily reac-
tions that serve the purpose of giving us information about the significance of
the events, including religious events, that we are involved in, physically or in
our imaginations.83
The view as stated is at best unclear and at worst obviously incoherent.

Brown and Strawn first say that emotions are “by-products of bodily adjust-
ments,” but then go on to imply that emotions are “subjective, inner experi-
ences.” But it is not clear how both can be true. Emotions, as subjective inner
experiences with motivational and epistemological components, cannot be
identical to bodily reactions.84 Identity is a necessary relation. A thing must
be identical to itself. So, if emotions are identical to bodily reactions or brain
states, then there cannot be an instance of an emotion that is not a bodily
reaction or brain state. However, the Christian physicalist is faced with the
following counterexample: biblically, God has emotions, but does not have a
body, brain states, or any physical features.85 Therefore, emotions cannot be

identical to any physical thing, bodily reactions, brain states, or otherwise.
Perhaps Brown and Strawn mean only that human emotions are identical
to bodily reactions or brain states. This would escape our counterexample,
although this move seems ad hoc. Regardless, this view faces a number of
problems. First, notice that on their account, phenomenal consciousness is
irrelevant to emotion. An individual can have the brain state or bodily reac-
tion of anger although that person does not have the phenomenal experience
of anger. The phenomenal experience of anger is not identical to the bodily
reaction of anger, which is why one can appear to be angry, yet not actually
be angry. Likewise, one can exhibit the bodily responses of fear, such as
increased pulse rate, perspiration, and trembling without having any fear at
all. For example, someone might tremble from excitement while entering a
hot room expecting a surprise.86 But an account of emotions that leaves out
the phenomenal quality, the “what-its-like-to-experience” feature of emo-
tions, has simply eliminated the fundamental feature of emotion. To feel
anger just is to be angry. So, the account of Brown and Strawn does not pro-
vide a sufficient condition for what it is for one to be in an emotional state.
Moreover, because people can behave as if they are afraid, yet not actually
be afraid, their account also does not give a necessary condition for emotions.
BODILY SOULS AND SPIRITUAL FORMATION
Now that we have responded to the objections to dualism from Brown and
Strawn and offered some problems for their version of Christian physicalism,
we wish to make a positive contribution to the discussion. A main theme of
this chapter has been that dualism is often misunderstood by its critics. In
order to help remedy this problem we now present a specific version of dual-
ism we have defended elsewhere.87 We call this form of dualism the bodily
soul view.
The Bodily Soul View

We agree with Christian physicalists that there is biblical emphasis on the
value of the body. We retain this by borrowing from Augustine and Aquinas
the insight that we are the kinds of souls that require bodies. Augustine, like
Aristotle and Aquinas, considers the soul the very life of the body.88 The
body does not exist on its own, but subsists through the soul.89 My body lives
through,90 and is vivified by my soul.91 We are selves to be sure, but bodily
selves that cannot function properly and be all they are intended to be without
bodies. We might say that we are bodily souls, souls that exist in a bodily
form or bodily manner.
Paradoxically, thinking of my soul as identical to myself rather than a part
of myself allows for a more ontologically intimate relation between body and
soul. It allows me to think of the body not as a part of myself, but my actual
manner of being as a whole. I am a soul, but I am not a pure spirit, like an
angel, but rather an incarnate or bodily self or soul. The relation between soul
(or self) and body can be as intimate as you like. One might believe that the
self cannot exist at all without a body. Or, perhaps more wisely, following
Augustine and Aquinas, we could hold that the self cannot exist in the full-
est and richest sense without a body. The soul can exist between death and
the resurrection but cannot carry out all its functions if it does not exist in
a bodily form. Thus, human salvation without a resurrected body would be
incomplete.92
One might ask why, if self and body are so intimately related, we should
not simply identify a person with his or her body. Why not opt for Christian
physicalism, rather than dualism? The answer is that a person as a self must
be distinguished from his or her body. Identity is a necessary relation. If I am
identical to my body, then it is necessary that what is true of my body is also
true of me and vice versa. However, because a person has some characteris-
tics qua self that the person does not have qua body, it is not logically possible
to identify a person with his or her body.
In our view, the human body plays a dual role. The self is a bodily self,
and thus my body is not simply another object in the world. It is rather the
form in which I exercise my agency. If I move from point A to point B, I do
so by walking or biking or otherwise moving my body. However, the body is
also experienced as an object in the world. It can and does exhibit the same
indifference and recalcitrance as the rest of the physical world. If my legs are
trapped under a car, I will not be able to move from point A to point B. If a
brain tumor invades the region of my brain that controls my motor functions,
I will similarly be unable to walk and move.
I thus find myself necessarily thinking of my body in two distinct ways:
both as the locus of my agency; the form in which I exist as a conscious self,
and as an object in the world; a physical entity that, like other physical enti-
ties, follows the laws of nature and does not always act as I want it to act.
When we think of the body in this second way, we naturally think of it as
something distinct from our self; we think of the body as if it were merely
another object in the world, an entity whose characteristics I must take
account of when I act. And when I think of my body as a material object in
the world, it is natural and in fact valuable to objectify it, to study it scientifi-
cally as one might study any other object in the world.
When I think of my body as the form in which I exist as a self, it is not a

mere object, but myself. When I think of my body in this second, objectified
manner, however, it is natural to think of it, not as myself, but as something
that the self must take into account in its agency, a part of the physical world.
When I think of the body in this objectified way, it is natural to think of it
as something distinct from the self. Hence, the language of body and soul as
two distinct entities is not only appropriate because of the possibility of life
after death; it is also appropriate insofar as we conceive of the body in this
objectified manner.
Christians should continue to affirm the traditional Christian view that
human persons are souls or selves, and that souls are not identical with any
physical objects. However, we should not think of our souls as ghostly enti-
ties that live inside us. Strictly speaking we do not have souls; we are souls.
However, on a Christian view this in no way diminishes the importance of the
body, because we are embodied, incarnate souls. I am at the same time wholly
soul and yet fully bodily. Wittgenstein says that, “The human body is the best
picture of the human soul.”93 That seems right from a Christian perspective.
Bodily Souls and Embodied Spiritual Formation

In conclusion, we would like to offer brief statements as to how our bodily
soul view explains some bodily aspects of Christian spiritual formation. We
offer the following for consideration.
1. Because our body is the primary manner in which we manifest our pres-
ence in the world, our body must be at the center of our sanctification.
2. Because our body is the primary manner in which we manifest our pres-
ence in the world, we must pay attention to how we make our selves
known through our bodies and also how we can hide our selves by con-
cealing our bodies.
3. Because our body has both private and social dimensions our sanctifica-
tion will also have private and social dimensions. One cannot flourish
without the other.
4. Because there are intimate interactions between body and soul, what hap-
pens to my body significantly shapes my sanctification. Hence, my envi-
ronment will always contribute to my spiritual formation.
CONCLUSION
The history of psychology, psychiatry, and by extension neuroscience, is

one of increasing reductionism, some of which was the product of political
motivations, rather than empirical discovery. Somogy Varga explains that

various changes to the definition of what qualifies as a mental disorder in
the DSM-III and DSM-IV were produced, not by scientific discovery, but
sociological pressure to legitimize psychiatry as a science. This was done by
redefining mental disorders in biological terms, and by eliminating any kind
of talk that might imply dualism.94 Of course, not all reductions come about
this way. But what this shows is that academic communities have in the past
rejected dualism and embraced physicalism for illegitimate reasons. This is
true, or so we have argued, of the antidualism and Christian physicalism of
Brown and Strawn.
NOTES
1. See Steve L. Porter, “Sanctification in a New Key: Relieving Evangelical Anxi-

eties over Spiritual Formation,” Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care 1, no. 2
(2008): 129–128.
2. See, 2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 5:1–5; 12:2; Ephesians 4:14–16; Colossians
3:4–17; 2 Peter 1:2–11 and 3:18.
3. See Dallas Willard, “Spiritual Formation as a Natural Part of Salvation,” in
Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks, ed. Gary
Black Jr. (New York: HarperOne, 2016), 301–319.
4. See for example, Dallas Willard, Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust
Spiritual Knowledge (New York: HarperOne, 2009) and Dallas Willard, The Disap-
pearance of Moral Knowledge (forthcoming).
5. C. Stephen Evans, “Separable Souls: A Defense of ‘Minimal Dualism,’”
Southern Journal of Philosophy 19, no. 3 (1981): 313–332.
6. C. Stephen Evans, “Separable Souls: Dualism, Selfhood, and the Possibility of
Life after Death,” Christian Scholar’s Review 34, no. 3 (2005): 327–340.
7. See, for example, Lynne Rudder Baker, “Need a Christian Be a Mind/Body
Dualist?” Faith and Philosophy 12, no. 4 (1995): 498–504, and “Christian Material-
ism in a Scientific Age,” International Journal of Philosophy of Religion 70, no. 1
(2011): 47–59; Trenton Merricks, Objects and Persons (Ithaca, NY: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2001), chapters 4 and 5; Peter van Inwagen, Material Beings (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1990), chapter 9; and Kevin Corcoran, Rethinking Human
Nature (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), chapter 3.
8. Warren S. Brown and Brad D. Strawn, The Physical Nature of Christian Life:
Neuroscience, Psychology, and the Church (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2012).
9. See for example, Lewis Ayers, “The Soul and the Reading of Scripture: A Note
on Henri De Lubac,” Scottish Journal of Theology 61, no. 2 (2008): 173–190; Dallas
Willard, “Spiritual Disciples, Spiritual Formation, and the Restoration of the Soul,”
Journal of Psychology & Theology 26 (1998): 101–109; and J.P. Moreland, “Restor-
ing the Substance of the Soul to Psychology,” Journal of Psychology and Theology
26, no. 1 (1998): 29–43.
10. Brown and Strawn, 69.

11. For a reply to the conservation of energy objection see, Robin Collins, “The
Energy of the Soul,” in The Soul Hypothesis: Investigations into the Existence of the
Soul, ed. Mark C. Baker and Stewart Goetz (New York: Continuum, 2011), 123–137.
12. For a detailed defense of this claim, see Dennis Bielfeldt, “Can Western Mono-
theism Avoid Substance Dualism,” Zygon 36, no. 1 (2001): 153–177.
13. Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Dou-
bleday, 1997), 92, cited in Brown and Strawn, 22.
14. Brown and Strawn, 23. This argument is reiterated through the book, especially
chapters 1–3.
15. Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ
(Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2002), 17.
16. Willard, Renovation of the Heart, 45.
17. Willard, Renovation of the Heart, chapter 9.
19. Charles Taliaferro, “The Virtues of Embodiment,” Philosophy 76 (2001):
111–125.
20. Richard, Swinburne, “What’s So Good About Having a Body?” in Compara-
tive Theology: Essays for Keith Ward, ed. Timothy Walter Bartel (London: SPCK,
2003), 137.
21. See Howard Robinson, “A Dualist Perspective on Psychological Develop-
ment,” in Philosophical Perspectives on Developmental Psychology, ed. J. A. Russell
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 119–139, and “A Dualist Theory of Embodiment,”
in The Case for Dualism, ed. John R. Smithies and John Beloff (Charlottesville:
University of Virginia Press, 1989), 43–58.
22. See for example, Gordon Barnes, “Is Dualism Religiously and Morally Perni-
cious?” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 78, no. 1 (2004): 103.
23. Augustine, Confessions, III.6.
24. See C. Stephen Evans, “Who is the Other in The Sickness unto Death? God
and Human Relations in the Constitution of the Self,” and “Kierkegaard’s View of the
Unconscious,” both in C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard on Faith and Self: Collected
Essays (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006).
25. For example, Boyd writes, “The word self has replaced the term soul in popular
culture, with the effect that people tend to think of themselves without thinking that
God is important to their self-concept. We live in a pre-Copernican age where God, if
God is thought to exist at all, is understood as being in orbit around the self, strength-
ening self-esteem or weakening the self through guilt feelings. The center of focus
in our time is on the self, on the individual and the individual’s need for autonomy,
self-determination, fulfillment, happiness, and self-sufficiency” (Jeffrey H. Boyd,
“Losing Soul: How and Why Theologians Created the Mental Health Movement,”
Calvin Theological Journal 30 [1995]: 473).
26. Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciples: Understanding How God Changes
Lives (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 33–34.
27. Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciples, 31.

30. In fact, his fascination with anatomy and physiology prompted one suggestion
that “if Descartes were alive today, he would be in charge of the CAT and PET scan
machines in a major research hospital” (Richard Watson, Cogito Ergo Sum: The Life
of René Descartes, rev. ed. [Boston: David Godine, 2007], 15).
31. For contemporary work on dualism and self-awareness, see J. P. Moreland,
“Substance Dualism and the Argument from Self-Awareness” Philosophia Christi
13, no. 1 (2011): 21–34. See also, David Barnett, “The Simplicity Intuition and Its
Hidden Influence on the Philosophy of Mind,” Noûs 42 (2008): 308–355; and “You
are Simple” in The Waning of Materialism, eds. Robert Koons and George Bealer
32. Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro, A Brief History of the Soul (Oxford:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 155.
33. See, for example, Paul Bloom, Descartes’ Baby: How the Science of Child
Development Explains What Makes Us Human (Cambridge, MA: Basic Books,
2004), chapter 7.
34. Bloom, Descartes’ Baby, xii.
35. See for example, Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles, The Self and Its Brain,
2nd ed. (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1985); John C. Eccles, The Human Psyche (New
York: Springer, 1980), lectures 1 and 2; Evolution of The Brain: Creation of The Self
(London: Routledge, 1989), chapter 9; and How the Self Controls Its Brain (Berlin:
Springer-Verlag, 1994), chapters 2 and 10.
36. Wigner argued that quantum mechanics requires a commitment to a strong
variety of mind-body dualism. For example, Wigner writes, “Until not many years
ago, the ‘existence’ of a mind or soul would have been passionately denied by most
physical scientists. . . . There are [however] several reasons for the return, on the part
of most physical scientists, to the Spirit of Descartes’ ‘Cogito ergo sum’ . . . When
the province of physical theory was extended to encompass microscopic phenomena,
through the creation of quantum mechanics, the concept of consciousness came to
the fore again: it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a
consistent way without reference to consciousness” (Eugene Paul Wigner, “Remarks
on the Mind–Body Question,” originally published in The Scientist Speculates, ed.
I. J. Good [London: Heinemann, 1961], 284–302, reprinted in Quantum Theory and
Measurement, ed. J. A. Wheeler, and W. H. Zurek [Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1983], 168–169).
37. See Wilder Penfield, The Mystery of Mind (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1975).
38. Stanford states, for example, “God has created us as embodied spirits, having
physical and spiritual aspects to our being” (Matthew S. Stanford, The Biology of
Sin: Grace, Hope, and Healing for Those Who Feel Trapped [Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2010], 12).
39. Jeffrey Schwartz, “A Role for Volition and Attention in the Generation of New
Brain Circuitry: Toward a Neurobiology of Mental Force,” Journal of Consciousness
Studies, 6, nos. 8–9 (1999): 115–142; and Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley, The
Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force (New York:
HarperCollins, 2002), 54–95.
40. Nancy S. Duvall, “From Soul to Self and Back Again,” Journal of Psychology
and Theology 26, no. 1 (1998): 6–15.
41. Todd W. Hall, “The Soul or Substantive Self as Experiencer, Actualizer, and
Representative in Psychoanalytic Theory,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 26,
no. 1 (1990): 55–65.
42. See for example, Jeffrey H. Boyd, Reclaiming the Soul: The Search for Mean-
ing in a Self-Centered Culture (Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1996); “The Soul
as Seen Through Evangelical Eyes, Part I: Mental Health Professionals and ‘The
Soul,’” Journal of Psychology and Theology 23, no. 3 (1995): 151–160; “The Soul
as Seen Through Evangelical Eyes, Part II: On Use of the Term ‘Soul,’” Journal of
Psychology and Theology 23, no. 3 (1995): 161–170; and “A History of the Concept
of the Soul during the 20th Century,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 26, no. 1
(1998): 66–82.
43. Eric L. Johnson, Foundations of Soul Care: A Christian Psychology Proposal
(Downers Grace, IL: IVP Academic, 2007). Johnson holds that the soul is an immate-
rial substance (16–17). See also Johnson, “Whatever Happened to the Human Soul?
A Brief Christian Genealogy of a Psychological Term,” Journal of Psychology and
Theology 26, no. 1 (1998): 16–28.
44. Sherwood O. Cole, “Don’t Disembody Me Just Yet! A Christian Perspective
on our Biological Nature,” Journal of Psychology and Christianity 21, no. 2 (2002):
15–60.
45. Greggo argues that compassionate clinical care is enriched by dualism,
whereby we have “the increased awareness that persons as living souls are formed
by a creative convergence of both human and divine nature and nurture” (Stephen P.
Greggo, “Soul Origin: Revisiting Creationist and Traducianist Theological Perspec-
tives in Light of Current Trends in Developmental Psychology,” Journal of Psychol-
ogy and Theology 33, no. 4 [2005]: 266).
46. See for example, Riccardo Manzotti and Paolo Moderato, “Neuroscience:
Dualism in Disguise,” in Contemporary Dualism: A Defense, eds. Andrea Lavazza
and Howard Robinson (New York: Routledge, 2014), 81–97; Alessandro Antonietti,
“Must Psychologists Be Dualists?” in Psycho-Physical Dualism Today: An Interdis-
ciplinary Approach, eds. A. Antonietti, A. Corradini, and E. J. Lowe (Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 37–67; and Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary,
The Spiritual Brain (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), chapters 5 and 6.
47. See, M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neu-
roscience (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003); W. Teed Rockwell, Neither Ghost nor
Brain (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005); William R. Uttal, The New Phrenology:
The Limits of Localizing Cognitive Processes in the Brain (Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press, 2001), and William R. Uttal, Dualism: The Original Sin of Cognitivism
(Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004).
48. See for example, Eric LaRock, “Neuroscience and the Hard Problem of Con-
sciousness,” in Neuroscience and the Soul: The Human Person in Philosophy, Sci-
ence, and Theology, eds. Thomas M. Crisp, Steven L. Porter, and Gregg A. Ten Elshof
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), 151–180; Eric LaRock and Robin Collins,
“Saving Our Souls from Materialism,” in Neuroscience and the Soul, 137–146; Eric
LaRock, “Is Consciousness Really a Brain Process?” International Philosophical
Quarterly 48, no. 2 (2008): 201–222; and J. P. Moreland, “Christianity, Neurosci-
ence, and Dualism,” in The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity,
eds. J. B. Stump and Alan Pagget (Oxford: Blackwell, 2012), 467–479; Jeffrey M.
Schwartz and Sharon Begley, The Mind and the Brain; Mihretu P. Guta, “Neurosci-
ence or Neuroscientism?” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 63, no. 1
(2011): 69–70; and Terence Horgan, “Nonreductive Materialism and the Explanatory
Autonomy of Psychology,” in Naturalism: A Critical Appraisal, eds. Steven Wag-
ner and Richard Warner (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993),
313–314.
49. See for example, Paolo Legrenzi and Carlo Umiltà, Neuromania: On the Limits
of Brain Science, trans. Frances Anderson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011);
Robert G. Shulman, Brain Imaging: What it Can (and Cannot) Tell Us about Con-
sciousness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Sally Satel and Scott Lilienfel,
Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience (New York: Basic
Books, 2013); and Raymond Tallis, Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the
Misrepresentation of Humanity (New York: Routledge, 2011).
50. For a defense of this claim see, Moreland, “Christianity, Neuroscience, and Dualism.”
51. Joseph Levine, “Materialism and Qualia: The Explanatory Gap,” Pacific Philo-
sophical Quarterly 64 (1983): 354–361.
52. David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 107.
53. Owen Flanagan, The Science of the Mind, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1991), 313. The new mysterians include Colin McGinn, The Mysterious
Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World (New York: Basic Books, 1999), chap-
ter 2; and Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian
Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012), 58–65.
55. Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in
Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 235–236.
56. According to scripture, we present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice
(Rom. 12:1), with repeated bodily exercise (1 Cor. 9:24–27; 1 Tim. 4:7–8) involving
specific body parts (Rom. 6:11–13,19), resulting in putting to death our bad habits
(Col. 3:5).
57. J. P. Moreland, Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian Mind, Renovate the
Soul, Restore the Spirit’s Power (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 152.
58. Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines, 158–190.
59. Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines, 152.
60. They write, “For some reason, our dualist presuppositions about persons cre-
ated a disconnect between our understanding of Christian formation in children and
our comprehension of the forces at work in adult Christian life. It is not true that the
impact on human development of all of these processes of ongoing reciprocal inter-
action with one’s social environment comes to an end somewhere in later childhood
or early adolescence. Rather, this developmental process is ongoing, allowing for

continuing development, formation, and change as adults” (Brown and Strawn, 70).
61. Brown and Strawn, 30–46.
62. For an insightful treatment of the gradual nature of sanctification by a dualist,
see, Steven L. Porter, “The Gradual Nature of Sanctification,” Themelios 39, no. 3
(2014): 470–483.
63. For a detailed dualist account of this, see Robinson, “A Dualist Perspective on
Psychological Development.”
64. For such an account, see John Coe and Todd Hall, Psychology in the Spirit:
Contours of a Transformational Psychology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic,
2010), section 3.
68. Stanford observes, “The ancient Hebrews and the first-century Christians were
unaware of how the brain and nervous system function. They were not unaware, how-
ever, that biology played a significant role in thoughts and behavior (e.g., Jeremiah
17:10, Psalm 26:2, 73:21–22)” (Stanford, Biology of Sin, 135). For more, see, R.
Shane Tubbs, et al., “Roots of neuroanatomy, neurology, and neurosurgery as found
in the Bible and Talmud,” Neurosurgery 63 (2008): 156–162.
69. Roderick Chisholm, “Mind,” in Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology, eds.
Hand Burckhardt and Barry Smith (Munich: Philosopia Veril, 1991), 544.
Cambridge University Press, 2006), 112.
71. Evans, “Separable Souls: Dualism, Selfhood, and the Possibility of Life After
Death,” 335.
76. This section is influenced by the following papers: J. P. Moreland, “Restor-
ing the Substance of the Soul to Psychology”; and J. P. Moreland, “Spiritual For-
mation and the Nature of the Soul,” Christian Education Journal (2000): 25–43.
Although Moreland raises different objections than ours, his approach to analyzing
substances in contrast to aggregates or property things inspirited our approach in this
section.
77. Brandon Rickabaugh, “Eternal Life as Knowledge of God: An Epistemology
of Knowledge by Acquaintance and Spiritual Formation,” Journal of Spiritual Forma-
tion and Soul Care 6, no. 2 (2013): 204–228.
78. Brown and Strawn, 58–63.
79. The original thought experiment was introduced in Frank Jackson, “Epiphe-
nomenal Qualia,” Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1982): 127–136; and more fully devel-
oped in, “What Mary Didn’t Know,” Journal of Philosophy 83, no. 5 (1986): 291–295.
80. Eleonore Stump, Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suf-
fering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 52.

84. On the nature of emotions see, Robert C. Roberts, Emotions: An Essay in Aid
of Moral Psychology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), chapter
2; and Michael S. Brady, Emotional Insight: The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experi-
ence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), chapter 2.
85. We are aware that there is a theological tradition that holds that God is “impas-
sible” and thus does not have emotions. We cannot argue for our view here, but simply
want to affirm that it is hard to see how the view that God has no emotions can be
consistent with the biblical picture of God.
86. This example is from M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foun-
dation of Neuroscience (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 209.
87. C. Stephen Evans and Brandon Rickabaugh, “What Does It Mean to Be a
Bodily Soul?” Philosophia Christi 17, no. 2 (2015): 315–330.
88. Augustine, On Freedom of the Will, II, XVI. 41; The Trinity, IV.I.3; Confes-
sions, II.6.
89. Augustine, The Immortality of the Soul, An. XV.24.
90. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, XXVII.6.
91. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, XXVII.6.
92. For a comprehensive defense of bodily resurrection from a dualist view, see
Brandon Rickabaugh, “Dismantling Bodily Resurrection Objections to Mind-Body
Dualism” (chapter 16).
93. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. Anscombe,
3rd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1953), 178.
94. Somogy Varga, Naturalism, Interpretation, and Mental Disorder (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2015), 141.
Antonietti, Alessandro. “Must Psychologists Be Dualists?” In Psycho-Physical Dual-

ism Today: An Interdisciplinary Approach, edited by A. Antonietti, A. Corradini,
and E. J. Lowe. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.
Crisp, Thomas M., Steven Porter, Gregg A. Ten Elshof, eds. Neuroscience and the
Soul: The Human Person in Philosophy, Science, and Theology. Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 2016.
Evans, Stephen C., and Brandon Rickabaugh. “What Does it Mean to Be a Bodily
Soul?” Philosophia Christi 17, no. 2 (2015): 315–330.
Johnson, Eric L. Foundations for Soul Care: A Christian Psychology Proposal.
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007.
LaRock, Eric. “Is Consciousness Really a Brain Process?” International Philosophi-
cal Quarterly 48, no. 2 (2008): 201–229.
Manzotti, Riccardo, and Paolo Moderato. “Neuroscience: Dualism in Disguise.” In

Contemporary Dualism: A Defense, edited by Andrea Lavazza and Howard Rob-
inson. New York: Routledge, 2014.
Moreland, J. P. “Restoring the Substance of the Soul to Psychology.” Journal of
Psychology and Theology 26, no. 1 (1998): 29–43.
———. “Spiritual Formation and the Nature of the Soul.” Christian Education Jour-
nal 4, no. 2 (2000): 25–43.
Robinson, Howard. “A Dualist Perspective on Psychological Development.” In
Philosophical Perspectives on Developmental Psychology, edited by James Rus-
sell. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1987.
———. “A Dualist Account of Embodiment.” In The Case for Dualism, edited by
John R. Smythies and John Beloff. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press,
1989.
Swinburne, Richard. “What’s So Good About Having a Body?” In Comparative The-
ology: Essays for Keith Ward, edited by Timothy Walter. London: SPCK, 2003.
———. Mind, Brain, and Free Will. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Willard, Dallas. Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. Colo-
rado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2002.
Chapter 13
Hope for Christian Materialism?

Problems of Too Many Thinkers
Jonathan J. Loose
The question of whether a materialist view of human persons is consistent

with the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body has been described
by Hud Hudson as a “centerpiece” in the dispute over Christian materialism.1
Hudson develops his own materialist metaphysic of the human person involv-
ing the controversial ontology of temporal parts and arguing that the associ-
ated account of the possibility of resurrection addresses issues that have not
been successfully dealt with by others, including animalists or proponents
of the Constitution View. After giving a rough sketch of Hudson’s views, I
argue that this account of resurrection suffers from a theological difficulty
that renders it no less problematic than its materialist rivals. This difficulty
turns out to be rooted in a more general problem that strongly suggests a
nonmaterialist view of human persons.
Of the various reasons to adopt a temporal parts view of material objects
(also termed “four-dimensionalism”),2 Hudson limits his motivation to just
one: the resolution of paradoxical puzzles that seem to result from a common-
sense understanding of the composition of material objects. Hudson highlights
two such paradoxes, including the problem of fission that I will discuss. In
order to solve a third, related problem, Hudson adds to four-dimensionalism
a counterpart theory of de re modal relations.3 Thus, his metaphysic contains
highly controversial elements, but these have generated much interest and
some support. We begin, then, by briefly outlining the temporal parts view,
before considering the resulting account of resurrection, its problematic theo-
logical consequence, and then the larger problem for materialism.
The idea that events have temporal parts is uncontroversial (a soccer match
is indeed a game of two halves), but the “temporal parts view” controversially
holds that objects have temporal parts too. Hudson explains the principal idea
that
257
258 Jonathan J. Loose
necessarily, for each way of exhaustively dividing the lifetime of any object, x,
into two parts, there is a corresponding way of dividing x itself into two parts,
each of which is present throughout, but not outside of, the corresponding part
of x’s lifetime.4
Thus, persons do not endure as a whole from moment to moment but have
a location and extension in time by having temporal parts spread out across
time in the same way that we have location and extension in space by having
parts spread out across space. A temporal part incorporates all of the per-
son’s other parts for as long as that temporal part exists. Thus, persons often
are visualized as space-time worms (e.g., with vertical-spatial extension and
horizontal-temporal extension). Those who adopt the temporal parts view
typically agree with Hudson that we are wholly material; that extended tem-
poral parts are fusions of momentary ones; and that Universalism is true. The
universalist accepts that, as David Lewis put it, “any old class of things has a
mereological sum. Whenever there are some things, no matter how disparate
and unrelated, there is something composed of just those things.”5
What, then, is the problem of fission that Hudson takes to be one of the
important motivators for four-dimensionalism and which will have a direct
consequence for his account of resurrection? First, imagine that my brain
is removed from my skull and fissioned (the hemispheres are separated).
My body is then destroyed. Now compare two fission scenarios: in the non-
branching scenario, just one hemisphere is successfully transplanted into a
waiting, brainless body while the other hemisphere is destroyed. One living
human person results. In the branching scenario, both of the hemispheres are
transplanted into different brainless bodies and two living human persons
result. The question is what happens to me in each case?
Given non-branching fission the common and confident response is that
I survive. However, branching fission is more difficult since it includes two
instances of what previously seemed to be a survivable operation, yet the
transitivity and necessity of identity dictate it would be incoherent to claim
that I survive as two beings. The scenario offers no way to distinguish the
two transplants to suggest that I survive as one rather than the other. Thus
the common conclusion is that I fission out of existence.6 However, the four-
dimensionalist is able to avoid this conclusion without either denying classi-
cal identity or making arbitrary decisions about which fission product I am.
This is because the temporal parts view allows the claim that there were two
persons present all along.
Recall that on the temporal parts view, objects do not endure from moment
to moment as wholes but are space-time worms, spread across time and com-
posed of temporal parts. Thus, we can say that two objects share a temporal
part, remaining distinct objects at all times while being indistinguishable
Hope for Christian Materialism? 259
during the period in time across which that shared part is located. Hence
branching fission reveals that I have a temporal part that is shared with
another person, and that part is temporally located across the period from the
moment I began to exist until the moment of fission. The other person and I
each have later temporal parts that we do not share, and so at later moments
we are observable as the distinct individuals that in fact we are at all times.
Visualized as space-time worms, the two persons are clearly distinct objects
that share parts at one point, just as two different railway lines might share a
single piece of track for part of their length.
Turning to the possibility of the resurrection, Hudson finds fault with
existing materialist accounts. He accepts that a materialist metaphysic must
explain how it is that the same person could be present at different times and
how resurrection is possible,7 and he argues that views that accept temporal
parts can do this in a way that avoids the difficulties of others that do not.
Difficulties arise for both traditional divine reassembly views and currently
popular constitution views,8 but of most interest is animalism. Van Inwagen’s
animalist account of resurrection holds that God preserves corpses for the
last day by instantaneous body-switching at the moment of each person’s
death such that what is buried is not a corpse but a simulacrum. However,
the consequent systematic deception of the bereaved renders God a deceiver,
and so an alternative is offered by Zimmerman that seeks to avoid this conse-
quence.9 He suggests that the simples which compose a body might have the
power to fission at the last moment of earthly life such that one fission prod-
uct leaps the temporal gap to the resurrection while leaving the other (which
is truly one’s corpse) on earth.10 However, this model is undermined by its
requirement for a closest-continuer account of personal identity. Hudson thus
presents his four-dimensional account as a way to avoid divine deception and
closest-continuer theories, as well as the need for reassembly and the belief
that constitution is not identity.
The four-dimensionalist’s account of resurrection follows from the
branching fission problem, as he “simply applies his solution to standard fis-
sion cases by recognizing overlapping (but non-co-located) continuants.”11
Resurrection is possible since a human person can be understood to be “an
extended (earlier) temporal part which mereologically overlaps a human ani-
mal and an extended (later) temporal part which, in the words of St. Paul, is
a new and imperishable spiritual body.”12 In other words, there is an earthly,
temporal part of me that is also a temporal part of a particular human organ-
ism (call this part “PERISHABLE”). PERISHABLE is a living human organ-
ism. The larger human organism that has PERISHABLE as a part also has
another temporal part that extends from the moment of my death throughout
its period of existence as a corpse. It is because PERISHABLE is a tempo-
ral part of a larger human organism that I am a human person. I also have
another heavenly temporal part (call this part “IMPERISHABLE”), which is

a new and imperishable spiritual body that extends eternally from the last day
forward. I am thus composed of temporally scattered parts, something that is
unproblematic given a universalist view of composition.
The result of all this is something like Zimmerman’s fissioning account,
but without a problematic closest-continuer theory (because there is no
need of any theory of diachronic identity). To hold that PERISHABLE and
IMPERISHABLE are parts of me we need only establish that they are linked
by a psychological gen-identity relation in the way that temporal parts should
be if we are to understand them to compose persons.13 The difficulties of
other views also fail to apply. Reassembly of the same thing at a later time is
meaningless on the temporal parts view, and given the possibility of shared
temporal parts we can explain coextensive entities at a time while holding
that constitution is identity. There is no deceptive body-snatching, and the
matter that remains on earth is in a meaningful sense my corpse, since it is
part of a human animal that shares a temporal part with me. Hudson believes
the view stands “head and shoulders above” the others.14
However, without rehearsing either the serious objections to four-dimen-
sionalist metaphysics and counterpart theory15 or the inadequacy of Hudson’s
theological account of the intermediate state and resurrection in comparison
to the most authoritative treatment,16 his view of resurrection has a serious
theological problem of its own. A satisfactory theological anthropology will
show not only how the nature of human persons is consistent with what
Christian doctrine has to say about us, but also that what a human person is
capable of knowing includes what Christian doctrine tells us we can know.
This includes knowing that we have hope for our own postmortem futures.
The New Testament concept of hope has been summarized as “trust in
God, patient waiting and confidence in God’s future.”17 Four-dimensionalism
does not entail that I cannot experience such hope, having acquired it in
theologically acceptable ways such as through observation of God’s prior
activity, comprehension of revealed promises, or participation in an eschato-
logical community within which the Holy Spirit provides a basis in present
experience for hope in what is to come. However, despite this, a very unusual
anthropological question remains. We must ask whether we can be sure that
this acquired attitude amounts to anything more than a mere quasihope,
where quasihope is an experience of hope in a future that belongs not to the
experient but to another. Can I know whether or not the object of my hope
is my own future or whether it is the future belonging to someone else? This
unusual problem is a serious one for the friend of temporal parts.
The four-dimensional account that purports to demonstrate that it is pos-
sible that I will stand again on the last day also renders me incapable of know-
ing if it will be me who will do so. My confidence in God’s future is as likely
to be a quasihope as it is to be a hope that is rightly mine. To understand why

this is the case, first consider again the puzzle of branching fission. Given
four-dimensionalism I know prior to fission that I will later be one of the
fission products (and that I cannot be both), but I do not know which of the
fission products I will be and thus which of the two persons I presently am.
This is because I am entirely indistinguishable from the other person during
the period in which we share a temporal part. During this period neither I nor
anyone else can know if I am Jonathan or someone else. This matters greatly
if the futures of the two persons are to be significantly different postfission.
For example, if Jonathan is to be rewarded while the other is to be tortured,
then it will be a matter of great concern to me to know who I am. The reason
I cannot know this is clarified by the illustration of two railway lines that
share a piece of track for part of their length. While it is on the shared track,
we have no idea on which line an unmarked train is traveling (and thus what
its destination will be). For that information we must wait until it reaches a
location at which the lines are once again on separate tracks.
Next consider the resurrection case, noting that the two objects of which
PERISHABLE is a temporal part are both thinkers. If PERISHABLE thinks
and is a temporal part shared by both a human organism and a person (Jona-
than), then both Jonathan and the human organism think.18 Furthermore, the
futures of Jonathan and the human organism could not be more different. The
human organism will become a corpse, while Jonathan will go on to resurrec-
tion life. So, it is a matter of some concern to me as I write these words to be
able to answer this question: am I Jonathan or the thinking human organism
with which Jonathan currently shares a temporal part? Given the ontology of
temporal parts, I simply cannot know and thus cannot know whether I expe-
rience hope that will not disappoint (because I am Jonathan) or quasihope
that will (because I am the human organism). I cannot know the answer to
this troubling question until I am located temporally at the point at which the
human organism and Jonathan do not have an overlapping temporal part. By
then, if I am the human organism, I will know nothing at all since I will be
a corpse.
So, it does indeed seem that the very four-dimensional metaphysic intro-
duced to demonstrate the possibility of my standing again at the last day
renders me incapable on this day of knowing whether it will be me who does
so. This is because there are at least two thinkers in my chair where there
seems to be but one human body. The situation for the friend of temporal
parts seems, quite literally, hopeless, and this view of resurrection is at least
as problematic as the other materialist views that Hudson canvases, albeit for
a different reason.
Here, then, is the underlying problem: materialist views have a habit
of problematically generating too many thinkers. This problem arises in
different ways. One important instance is a general problem described by

Peter Unger that causes him to reject a physicalist view of human persons. I
will describe this problem and Unger’s resolution.
Unger introduced a dilemma for the common-sense view that a perception
of a single physical object of a certain type—be it a cloud in an otherwise
clear sky, a salt shaker on the kitchen table, or a person sitting in a chair—
reflects the fact that there is indeed a single object of that type present. He
argued instead that in such cases either there is no object present or else there
are many millions of objects present, hence “the Problem of the Many or the
None.”19 Since Unger took the idea of the many to be intolerable, the dilemma
becomes, simply, the Problem of the Many.
Why is there a Problem of the Many? It is rarely, if ever, the case that a
given situation contains just one precisely defined group of entities that could
together compose a concrete complex of a given type (such as a cloud). The
perception that a distant cloud has a sharp boundary might encourage us to
believe it must be one such complex constituted by a precisely defined, suf-
ficiently numerous, and not too widely scattered group of water droplets.
However, if we were to fly into the cloud and inspect more closely, we
would discover that the cloud’s boundary is unclear and there are very many
water droplets for which we cannot say with certainty that they are or are
not constituents of it. If we decide to make an initial selection of the droplets
that we consider constitute the cloud then many, highly similar and almost
entirely overlapping groups will be rejected, each involving a difference of
just a few droplets more or less, here or there. The differences between these
many groups would not be so great as to have any impact on whether they
qualify for cloudhood. Thus, if these many “overlappers” are indeed equally
qualified then:
either all of them make it or else nothing does; in this real situation, either there
are many clouds or else there really are no clouds at all. This dilemma presents
our problem of the many.20
While the Problem of the Many is illustrated clearly by thinking about clouds
and recognizing that, if there is one cloud, then there are millions of clouds,
it also applies much more widely and most likely to all complex physical
objects (including salt shakers, human bodies, and much else besides). For
example, Unger notes that even the surface of a stone will include many
atoms or molecules “whose status with regard to our typical stone, nature has
left unclear,”21 and thus the problem applies even here.22
Hudson took Unger’s problem to be important in the initial development
of his materialist metaphysic of the human person. He applies it (for clarity’s
sake without making use of four-dimensionalism) to the case of “Legion”:
a wholly material object that is a human person.23 At any time, Legion is

the fusion of a very large number of material simples.24 The set of simples
that jointly compose him is named “the Primary Set” and the fusion of these
simples, “Tweedledee.” He next considers a further set of simples that over-
laps with the Primary Set almost perfectly, apart from the exclusion of just
one material simple that the Primary Set includes and the inclusion of just one
material simple that the Primary Set excludes. This overlapping set he names
“the Secondary Set” and the fusion of its members, “Tweedledum.”
Given the almost total overlap between Tweedledee and Tweedledum, it
seems either that both satisfy the conditions for composing a person or that
neither does, and herein lies the problem. Where we thought we had one
person (Legion), we must have at least two (Tweedledee and Tweedledum),
but—of course—there is a vast number of sets of material simples that differ
from the Primary Set in just the way that the Secondary Set does, and so it
seems there is a vast number of persons where we thought there was only one.
Both Unger and Hudson believe the Problem of the Many presents a seri-
ous issue, the resolution of which will have important consequences for our
understanding of the metaphysics of human persons. They disagree, however,
about the way in which the dilemma should be resolved and thus about what
those anthropological consequences are. Unger takes the existence of many
thinkers to be the greater evil, initially adopting a broadly nihilist response
as a result. Contrastingly, Hudson considers the existence of many thinkers to
be the least among evils, being preferable not only to the nihilist alternative
(which he rejects firmly as incoherent)25 but also to various alternative solu-
tions (excluding his own “Partist” view) that he surveys under the heading
“The Many Problematic Solutions to the Problem of the Many”:26
if I were without recourse to the Partist solution . . . I think I would have to

recommend the many-persons approach as the least embarrassing of the cur-
rently available alternatives open to materialists who are committed (as I am) to
eschewing bruteness where possible.27
Hudson’s interest in the Problem of the Many arises because it seems to

threaten the coherence of a set of assumptions, including materialism, that
enjoy wide acceptance and are regarded as sensible by a broad section of
philosophers. He thus seems primarily concerned to establish which of the
materialist views on offer is most able to deal with the problem and second-
arily to reject nonmaterialistic views, including dualist and idealist views
within his survey of “Many Problematic Solutions.” However, it is not clear
why dualism and idealism offer problematic solutions. Dualism, he sug-
gests, can be developed to accommodate the problem (though he describes
this development as a “perversion of their theory”),28 and so it is unrelated
traditional objections to dualism that are his greatest concern. Idealism is

on even stronger ground, as Hudson notes that if there are no human organ-
isms or material objects then our problem simply disappears, and this is the
strongest argument for idealism that he has seen, even if he cannot consider
it sound because when it comes to idealism, he “cannot believe a word of
it.”29 Whatever the seriousness of the problems traditionally pressed against
dualism and idealism, Hudson is not adding to their woes by presenting the
Problem of the Many, and discussion of these views seems out of place in the
list of “Problematic Solutions.”30
The development of the dualist theory to which Hudson refers is that we
“count just one human person when we have some immaterial person con-
nected to many substantially overlapping human organisms.”31 Very interest-
ingly, this is the view ultimately expressed by Unger as the one to which the
Problem of the Many inexorably leads.32 Unger acknowledges dualism even
in his initial presentation of the problem. He argues that persons are concrete
individuals and, if physical, then plausibly they must also be complex, in
which case The Problem applies to them with devastating effect. He writes,
At first blush, then, our problem would give comfort to dualistic views regarding
the mental and the physical, I am a concrete entity that is only mental or spiritual
in nature and not physical or material.33
Unger then rejected this possibility because he believed that it undermined

the common practice of identifying persons by distinguishing one body
from others. For example, when I identify my wife I assume that the body I
identify is “the body of a single person and this person has no body but this
one.”34 However, this is a poor reason to reject the view if the many human
organisms to which my wife is connected overlap to such a great extent. In
that case, I can rest content that the number of persons remains as it seems
to be, even if the number of human organisms is very many more and that
whichever of the millions of overlapping human organisms I identify when I
believe myself to be recognizing my wife, I can be sure that I am successfully
identifying her.
In later work, Unger no longer offered this objection. Rather, he came to
believe that even though the problem has universally counterintuitive results,
those results are not always intolerable.35 Consider the power to digest. It is
merely a physical propensity that is derived from the powers of the physical
entities that compose a complex physical being. Thus, the consequence of
recognizing the problem of the many digestings amounts to little more than
the introduction of a new way to speak about it. We might choose to speak
loosely, saying that in the place where I am located there is but one process
of digesting going on; or we might speak strictly, which given the Problem
of the Many means we must say that there are many very similar overlapping
digestings going on. While the latter is less intuitive than the former, little
else rides on the difference and so the strict claim that there are many digest-
ings is tolerable.
This contrasts sharply with the power to experience. The situation here is
different. Experiencing is not a physical propensity, but a mental one. The
power to experience is not obviously derived from the powers of the physical
entities that compose a complex physical being, and so it is at the least radi-
cally emergent. The consequences of recognizing this “Experiential Problem
of the Many” are much more significant. For example, they include the fact
that each of the overlapping experiencers will be wrong in his firm and fun-
damental beliefs that he is alone in his situation and that he is having experi-
ences that are unique, private, and not communicated to millions of others.
Unger writes, “Really, now, can anything like that possibly be right? The very
suggestion is, I think a terribly disturbing idea.”36 Such consequences cannot
be safely ignored by speaking loosely of just one thinker. Here, then, is the
version of the Problem of the Many that generates a troubling and serious
philosophical problem that leads Unger to substance dualism.
If we try to explain the power to experience in terms of an emergent prop-
erty dualism (what Unger calls “Nonentity Emergentism”) then the experi-
encer is the complex physical being (the body), and therefore we fall victim
to the Experiential Problem of the Many with its intolerably counterintuitive
consequences. So Unger instead turns back to the “first blush” solution.
He explores the possibility of an emergent substance dualism on which the
immaterial soul that I am causally interacts directly and equally with each of
the many highly overlapping complex bodies (each of my bodies). It does
not seem obviously problematic to hold that each of the many bodies is one
of my bodies and none of them are the bodies of anyone else. There would,
of course, be many neural systems that would need to promote just a single
experiencer, but neural systems are like digestive ones in being nothing more
than physical propensities of a physically complex being that derive from
its physical constituents, and so fundamental material particles could jointly
possess a propensity to promote a single experiencer when appropriately
configured with many others. In that way, all of these overlapping bodies and
neural processes would promote only that single experiencer and only the
experiencing that belongs to it. I may speak strictly of my many bodies or,
without seriously problematic loss, speak loosely of “my body,” but in each
case I speak only of myself. Here, then, is Unger’s dualist solution to the
Problem of the Many.
I noted earlier that Hudson also takes this Problem of the Many to be seri-
ous and draws a different conclusion from it than Unger. Hudson offers his
own Partist solution: an original and sophisticated metaphysical account in
which parthood is understood relative to a spatial region such that we can

think of my parts at different regions in the way that a three-dimensionalist
would think of my presence at different times. On this view, I can be numeri-
cally identical across multiple simultaneous regions even if my composition
at those regions differs. Despite the originality and sophistication of this
creative response, I dare say that many will agree that such a view only goes
to show just how far the materialist has to stretch credulity to be able to
accommodate these fundamental difficulties. Even with Partism, a different
problem of too many thinkers then arises in the account of resurrection, as I
have argued. Thus, the Problem of the Many presents a general and powerful
example of problems of “too many thinkers” that plague materialist but not
nonmaterialist views, and their power is such as to persuade a nontheistic
philosopher such as Unger to adopt a dualist view despite the lack of fit to
his broader worldview and his acknowledgment that, “Nowadays, it’s hard
for academically respectable philosophers to believe in mentally powerful
nonphysical beings.”37
Whatever hope remains for materialist theories of the possibility of resur-
rection (and new theories continue to proliferate, not least from Hudson him-
self), it is clear that a four-dimensionalist account that parallels the solution
to the problem of fission will not suffice as the centerpiece of the materialist’s
case, and this because it suffers from a problem of too many thinkers that is
a significant general problem for materialism.
NOTES
1. Hud Hudson, A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person (Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press, 2001), 148.
2. For a helpful introduction to this view see, for example, Eric T Olson, What
Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007),
chapter 5.
3. For the problem of fission, see Derek Parfit, “Personal Identity,” in Personal
Identity, ed. John Perry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 199–223;
David Lewis, “Survival and Identity and Postscripts,” in Philosophical Papers, vol. 1
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 55–77. The other important puzzle resolved
by the doctrine of temporal parts is Wiggins’s puzzle of Tibbles and Tib. See David
Wiggins, “On Being in the Same Place at the Same Time,” The Philosophical Review
77, no. 1 (1968): 90–95. If two objects cannot be co-located without being identical
then consider Tib—a proper part of a cat, Tibbles, minus her tail. If Tibbles loses her
tail, Tibbles and Tib are now co-located and both seem to survive. Are Tibbles and
Tib identical after all? The four-dimensionalist says that Tibbles and Tib are four-
dimensional continuants that overlap by sharing a temporal part that begins at the
point that the tail is lost. It is Gibbard’s related puzzle of the lump of clay that are
perfectly coincident throughout the course of their existence that requires an addi-
tional commitment to counterpart theory. See Allan Gibbard, “Contingent Identity,”
Journal of Philosophical Logic 4 (1975): 187–221.
4. Hudson, A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, 58.
5. David Lewis, The Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 211.
6. Even this conclusion is not trouble free. When combined with the claim that
I survive in the single transplant scenario we conclude that my persistence has noth-
ing to do with the physical thing that I am before or after the transplant, or with the
operation itself. Rather, my persistence depends on the fate of the other hemisphere;
a seemingly absurd consequence. See Harold W Noonan, Personal Identity, 2nd ed.
(London: Routledge, 2003).
7. See Trenton Merricks, “There Are No Criteria of Identity Over Time,” Noûs
32 (1998): 106–24; Dean W Zimmerman, “Criteria of Identity and the ‘Identity Mys-
tics,’” Erkenntnis 48 (1998): 281–301.
8. If the same matter is shared by successive individuals, most strikingly by the
cannibal and his victim, then this ensures that the raw materials are unavailable for
God to reassemble everyone on the last day. The Constitution View is “insufficiently
motivated, its commitment to co-location an impossibility, and its constitution rela-
tion a mystery” (Hud Hudson, “Multiple Location and Single Location Resurrection,”
in Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death?, ed. Georg
Gasser [Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010], 87–101); see also Lynne Rudder Baker,
“Persons and the Metaphysics of Resurrection,” Religious Studies 43, no. 3 (2007):
333–48.
9. See Peter van Inwagen, “The Possibility of Resurrection,” in The Oxford
Handbook of Philosophical Theology, vol. 2, ed. Michael C Rea (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2009), 321–27; Dean W Zimmerman, “Materialism and Survival: The
Falling Elevator Model,” Faith and Philosophy 16 (1999): 194–212. I review these
accounts in detail in Jonathan J. Loose, “Materialism Most Miserable: The Prospects
for Dualist and Physicalist Accounts of Resurrection,” in The Blackwell Companion
to Substance Dualism, ed. Jonathan J. Loose, Angus J. L. Menuge, and J. P. Moreland
(Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, Forthcoming, 2018).
10. For the claim that Zimmerman’s model merely changes the method of divine
deception rather than removing it, see William Hasker, “Materialism and the Resur-
rection: Are the Prospects Improving?” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion
3, no. 1 (2011): 83–103.
12. Hud Hudson, “The Resurrection and Hypertime,” in Paradise Understood:
New Philosophical Essays About Heaven, ed. T. Ryan Byerly and Eric J Silverman
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 263–73; see also Hudson, “Multiple Loca-
tion and Single Location Resurrection,” 94–95; Hudson, A Materialist Metaphysics
of the Human Person, chapter 7.
13. See Hudson, “Multiple Location and Single Location Resurrection,” 94–95.
15. Hudson notes that the theory of temporal parts has been charged with “incoher-
ency, declared unmotivated, and criticized for the company it keeps (i.e., for its close
association with counterpart theory),” (Hudson, “The Resurrection and Hypertime,”

266–67).
16. See Hudson, A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, chapter 7; cf.
John W Cooper, Body, Soul and the Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the
Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000).
17. J. M. Everts, “Hope,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Ralph P. Mar-
tin, G. F. Hawthorne and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1993),
415–17.
18. Even if our concept of human person does not include the human animal (as
Hudson’s does not), the problem rests only on the claim that there are two thinkers
present, and it is clear that the human organism is at least a thinking nonperson.
19. Peter Unger, “The Problem of the Many,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5
(1980): 412.
20. Unger, “The Problem of the Many,” 415.
22. Such everyday objects, he argues, are actually better demonstrations of the
dilemma since we are more confident that these are concrete entities in the first place
and so we are more confident that if they have a range of possible boundaries (or
possible groups of constituents) then the problem applies: if there is one such object,
there must be (at least) millions of such objects.
23. Hudson, A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, 11–14.
24. The term “material simple” refers to the lowest level uncuttable particles,
whatever they turn out to be.
25. Hudson, A Materialist Metaphysics, 17–18.
26. Hudson, A Materialist Metaphysics, chapter 1.
27. Hudson, A Materialist Metaphysics, 38.
30. Proponents of all views must face typical objections, but the common dis-
missal of dualism via certain common objections looks increasingly suspect. See, for
example, William G Lycan, “Redressing Dualism,” in The Blackwell Companion to
Substance Dualism.
32. Peter Unger, All the Power in the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006), chapters 6–7.
35. See Unger, All the Power in the World, 376–81.
36. Unger, All the Power in the World, 376–77.
37. Unger, All the Power in the World, 381.
Cooper, John W. Body, Soul and the Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the
———. “Multiple Location and Single Location Resurrection.” In Personal Identity
and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death?, edited by Georg Gasser. Farn-
ham, UK: Ashgate, 2010.
Lewis, David. The Plurality of Worlds. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1986.
Loose, Jonathan J. “Materialism Most Miserable: The Prospects for Dualist and
Physicalist Accounts of Resurrection.” In The Blackwell Companion to Substance
Dualism, edited by Jonathan J. Loose, Angus J. L. Menuge, and J. P. Moreland.
Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming, 2018.
Lycan, William G. “Redressing Dualism.” In The Blackwell Companion to Substance
Olson, Eric T. What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology. Oxford, UK: Oxford
Parfit, Derek. “Personal Identity.” In Personal Identity, edited by John Perry. Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1975.
Unger, Peter. All the Power in the World. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press,
2006.
———. “The Problem of the Many.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5 (1980):
411–67.
Chapter 14
How to Lose the Intermediate

State without Losing Your Soul
James T. Turner, Jr.
Elsewhere in print, I have offered a number of reasons for thinking that Chris-
tians should deny the intermediate state.1 By the “intermediate state” I mean
the purportedly disembodied postmortem preresurrection plane of existence
in which redeemed humans (at least) exist in a heavenly/paradisiacal sort
of condition.2 For the purposes of this chapter, I am going to assume that
those arguments go through. From that position, I aim to offer a constructive
proposal that acts as a “how to” guide for positing an immediate resurrec-
tion view. But, unlike some immediate resurrection accounts that are often
(rightly, in my view) disparaged, my view denies the following: “soul sleep,”
“gappy existence” (i.e., that a human ceases to exist after her death and then
pops back into existence at her resurrection), and that there’s no general res-
urrection. In other words, I offer an immediate resurrection view that affirms
that all humans who are to be resurrected will be resurrected at the same time,
that is, at the time of Christ’s return. I also affirm that dead redeemed humans
immediately are in the presence of the incarnate Christ. I take it that this is an
immediate resurrection view that is unlike any that’s been offered.3
I begin constructing my proposal for an immediate resurrection view in
the first section by filling out some further biblical theological reasons for
motivating an immediate resurrection theory. In the second section, I sketch
a model of time such that theologians can affirm that a dead redeemed human
person immediately will find herself at the general resurrection, in the pres-
ence of Christ in Paradise. Lastly, in the third section, I provide a nonphysi-
calist account of human beings that works with the model of time I provide in
the second section. I do this because it is sometimes taken to be the case that
immediate resurrection views are the property of physicalist anthropologies.
I argue this is not the case; in fact, a particular sort of dualism best provides
for an immediate resurrection.4
271
272 James T. Turner, Jr.
BIBLICAL THEOLOGICAL DATA
One well-worn philosophical idea is that part of what it is to know what a

thing is is to know its purpose, its telos. For example, if one wants to know
what a hammer is, one helpful way of explaining it is by explaining what it
is used for, that is, smashing metal spikes into substances through which one
cannot, by one’s bare hand, push the spikes. If one wanted to design a ham-
mer, one would begin with the end in mind: smashing metal spikes into hard
substances.
Now, when it comes to thinking about our current topic, namely, life after
death and—with respect to the volume writ large—the human person, one
might think of the telos of the human person as a way to figure out what sort
of thing a human is. And theologians have done so from various angles. Some
say that humans are made primarily for relationships, particularly with God,
an immaterial being; some say that humans are made to reflect the mental
attributes of God—a mind greater than which none can be conceived.5 Some
say that the purpose of a human is to co-rule the cosmos with God, its creator.6
Now, I agree with this last statement. But, as it stands, it doesn’t provide
any direct bearing on the ontological constitution of the human person. That
is to say: that humans are meant to co-rule the cosmos doesn’t tell us anything
about whether physicalism or dualism about the human person is correct. So,
instead of beginning with a discussion of the human person, I wish to begin
thinking about the human being by reviewing some biblical theological data
concerning the purpose of the entire created order. This is fitting because
there are long held philosophical and theological reasons for thinking that
human beings are pictures of the cosmos in miniature: microcosms. If that’s
correct, then one helpful way to understand what sort of thing a human being
is is to understand what sort of thing the cosmos is. To do that we need to
know the cosmos’s purpose.
Here I wish to follow much of the recent biblical theological work advanced
by G. K. Beale, J. Richard Middleton, Jon D. Levenson, Benjamin L. Gladd
and Matthew S. Harmon, and John H. Walton (to name but a few). By their
corporate lights, the purpose of the cosmos is to be a temple in which Yahweh
dwells with His creation.7 They suggest that this is one of the main themes
in the Old and New Testaments, from the creation narrative in Genesis to the
closing of the Book of Revelation: God’s dwelling place is meant to be with
man in a cosmos where God’s will is done on earth as it is in Heaven (Matt.
6:9–10). In other words, the goal is that Heaven and earth will be united (cf.
Rev. 21 and 22). Or, in the language of the Psalms and Prophets, God’s glory
is meant to cover the earth “as the waters cover the sea” (cf. Ps. 57:5, 57:11,
72:19, 108:4–5; Isa. 6:3, 11:9).8
How to Lose the Intermediate State without Losing Your Soul 273
If this is correct, if it’s the case that the material creation has been, from
the beginning, purposed to be a cosmic temple in which Yahweh dwells, then
this may say something about the purpose of human beings. That is, it might
say something about what it is for humans to have been, as the Scriptures
declare, made “in the image of God.” Unsurprisingly, these biblical scholars
think it does. And, the purpose it reveals isn’t what many systematicians and
philosophers think. Rather, in the words of Middleton:
a virtual consensus has been building since the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury among Old Testament scholars concerning the meaning of imago Dei in
Genesis, and this view is quite distinct from the typical proposals found among
systematic theologians. This virtual consensus is based [in part] on exegesis
of Genesis 1:1–23, the textual unit that forms the immediate literary context
of 1:26–27 [“let us make man in our own image”] . . . Such exegesis notes
the predominantly royal flavor of the text, beginning with the close linkage of
image with the mandate to rule and subdue the earth and its creatures in 1:26
and 28 (typically royal functions). But beyond this royal mandate, the God in
whose image and likeness humans are created is depicted as sovereign over the
cosmos, ruling by royal decree (“let there be”) and even addressing the divine
council or heavenly court of angelic beings with “let us make humanity in our
image,” an address that parallel’s God’s question to the seraphim at the call of
Isaiah [Isaiah 6:8] . . . Just as Isaiah saw YHWH “seated on a throne, high and
exalted” (6:1), so the writer of Genesis 1 portrays God as king presiding over
“heaven and earth,” an ordered and harmonious realm in which each creature
manifests the will of the creator and is thus declared “good.” Humanity is cre-
ated like this God, with the special role of representing or imaging God’s rule
in the world.9
Being made “in the image of God,” then, is a royal title with a royal function
and purpose. What it is to image Yahweh just is to be a royal representative,
a vice-regent of his sovereign rule.10
Moreover, against the backdrop of the Ancient Near East, and its popular
theology within which the cult image “is a precisely localized, visible, corpo-
real representation of the divine,” we have good reason to think that the Gen-
esis creation story presents humankind as the embodied and visible expression
of Yahweh’s rule, in contradistinction to the various wooden, stone, and what
have you, cult images of competing Ancient Near Eastern deities.11 Yahweh’s
image is crafted by Yahweh Himself, rather than by human hands.12 If one
supposes that the property “being a localized, visible, and corporeal repre-
sentation of Yahweh” is an essential property of human beings, then a human
cannot—so long as she exists—fail to be localized, visible, and corporeal. If
that’s right, humankind lacks the ability to exist in a disembodied state.
I’m no biblical scholar. I’m a theologian. So, I’ll let the exegetes fill in the
previously mentioned work. The reason I’ve offered this cursory examination of
(a plausible view of) the cosmos’s purpose, and the purpose of humans within it,
serves one basic end: to explain why I am inclined to posit an immediate bodily
resurrection view. How does the preceding discussion relate to immediate res-
urrection? Well, given what I have said, if the redeemed are to find themselves
immediately in the presence of the incarnate Christ following their deaths, it is
not going to be in a disembodied state (ex hypothesi, they’re essentially visible
and localizable, i.e., embodied). Since Christians think the resurrection of the
dead occurs when Christ returns (a future event), we need some way of account-
ing for how such a thing could follow immediately after a human’s death—an
event presumably that’s temporally well before the parousia.
One problem with disembodied notions of immediate presence with Christ,
as I see it, is that most explications of such views do not say anything about
fulfilling the peculiarly royal and earthly purpose that exegetes say humans
are created to accomplish, that is, live and work in the cosmos to expand the
glory and worship of the Yahweh in His cosmic temple (though this isn’t
to say they couldn’t do this). Problematically, many explanations of, for
example, the beatific vision, appear to take no account of the Ancient Near
Eastern background to the Genesis creation story, the narrative that frames
the rest of the story of Scripture, not least the story’s telos (New Creation)
(e.g., it seems entirely missing in Thomas Aquinas’s noteworthy and seminal
account of the beatific vision).13
Perhaps many theologians won’t be bothered by the idea that, on many
theological accounts of the human telos, the Ancient Near Eastern setting
for the story of humankind’s creation isn’t in view. Instead, such theologians
might rest comfortably on the history of interpretation through the tradition.
Admittedly, that’s not a weak position. But if the exegetes I’ve mentioned
(and the purportedly consensual deliverances of the last century of Old
Testament exegetes) are correct about what the Bible means concerning the
purpose of the cosmos and the purpose of God’s image bearers, personal
eschatology is not best viewed as the individually experienced “heavenly”
state, nor is the biblical story about a human’s individually experiencing-
being united to God in a beatific vision. Rather, the story vis-à-vis humanity
moves forward to a particular and divinely ordained climax: being bodily
resurrected into the New Creation (better: Renewed Creation) to live and
work as a corporate people in God’s cosmic temple as redeemed and glori-
fied images; that is, images that won’t rebel. I grant these musings don’t rule
out a disembodied intermediate state. I highlight them merely to help explain
why I take it that embodiment is critically important to the human species and
God’s purpose for them. As I say above, I have sustained arguments against
the intermediate state elsewhere.
Helpfully, this way of thinking about the creation’s purpose does

strengthen a historically well-established theological position about resur-
rection: that the human body that dies is numerically the same human body
that rises from the grave. Though this position recently has been reduced in
prominence, there seem to be very strong exegetical and theological reasons
for defending it. Joshua Mugg and I have reviewed and defended a number
of these important reasons elsewhere.14 I’ll not reiterate those arguments
here. What I will offer, though, are some of the arguments’ conclusions:
(1) “Resurrection” just means that the body that died is the body that rises
(hence: resurrection of the body). Acquiring a numerically distinct body is
reincarnation, not resurrection. (2) Jesus’s resurrection is a foretaste of the
redemption of the cosmos writ large and our bodies (i.e., the microcosms).
What this tells us is that, just as in the gospels’ resurrection narratives
Jesus’s body is not annihilated, the numerically same body that goes into
the tomb comes out (this is the explanans for the empty tomb in the gospel
witnesses).
Moreover, because Jesus’s resurrection is a model for the redemption of
the cosmos, we can infer that the redeemed cosmos (the New Creation) will
be numerically identical to this cosmos (see also 1 Cor. 15 wherein Christ
is described as the “first-fruits” of the resurrection).15 I take it that this is the
obvious point of Romans 8:19–23: “For the creation waits with eager longing
for the revealing of the sons of God . . . that the creation itself will be set free
from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the chil-
dren of God . . . And not only the creation, but we ourselves . . . wait eagerly
for . . . the redemption of our bodies” (so that we can fulfill our intended
purpose as described above).16 We can sum up the lesson from Jesus’s res-
urrection and the Romans 8 passage with the following conditionals: (3) If
Jesus’s resurrected body is numerically identical to his premortem body, then
the New Creation is numerically identical to the pre-eschatological cosmos.
(4) If the New Creation is numerically identical to the pre-eschatological
cosmos, then a resurrected human’s body will be numerically identical to her
premortem body. (5) If Jesus’s resurrected body is numerically identical to
his premortem body, then every resurrected human body will be numerically
identical to its premortem body.
I think these conditionals are true. I further think that the biblical theologi-
cal data I’ve provided give good reasons for thinking that humans are essen-
tially embodied. Now, a physicalist might think that what I’ve said so far is
an argument in physicalism’s favor. Not so! As we’ll see in the third section, I
think that physicalism struggles to account for the numerical identity between
premortem bodies and resurrection bodies. In my view, if physicalism cannot
account for this numerical identity, that would be a fatal theological problem
for physicalism.
Following from and rounding out this bit of this discussion, allow me to
put forward a list of theological affirmations that drive me to provide a model
of immediate resurrection:
a. Bodily resurrection is in no way superfluous to a human being’s life after

death.
b. We have good exegetical reasons for thinking that redeemed humans
immediately reach Paradise and the presence of the incarnate Christ the
moment following their biological deaths.
c. Bodily resurrection requires that the body that dies is the body that rises
again to everlasting life.
d. The general resurrection of the dead happens at Christ’s return.
e. The purpose of the human is to be the localizable, visible, and corporeal
representative of Yahweh’s rule in His cosmic temple.
f. The teleologically fulfilled and eschatological state of the cosmos is such
that Heaven and earth are joined into a cosmic temple filled with Yahweh’s
glory.
Now, it’s likely that some of these theological affirmations are controversial,
at least among certain systematicians. My point in offering them, and the
preceding discussion, is not fully to convince the systematician that this posi-
tion is correct (though I do think I’ve given some good, if brief, reasons to
think so). Rather, my point is to fill out my purpose for this chapter. This is
a how-to chapter, after all. As with many “how” questions, there precedes a
“why” question. Take the above as providing a set of answers to the “why”
question. Moreover, in the interest of this volume, my purposes for providing
a model of immediate resurrection is not motivated by philosophical anthro-
pology. Nor is it motivated by supposed scientific findings vis-à-vis human
evolution and neuroscience.17 Rather, my motivations for rejecting a disem-
bodied intermediate state are biblical and theological. And these are my same
motivations for attempting to construct an immediate resurrection model and
to reject physicalism.
For the remainder of the chapter, assume (for argument) that (a)–(f) are
true. The model of immediate resurrection I tentatively offer means to accom-
modate, at least, claims (a)–(f). It’s to that task I now turn.
SKETCHING A MODEL OF THE NOW AND

NOT-YET: “ESCHATOLOGICAL PRESENTISM”
With a healthy portion of the Christian tradition, I affirm claim (b). That is,
there seem to me good scriptural reasons for affirming what most Christians
in the tradition affirm: at least some redeemed humans go immediately to

Paradise, in the presence of the incarnate Christ, following their biological
deaths. As a Protestant, I want to affirm something further: there are good
scriptural reasons for thinking that all redeemed humans go immediately to
Paradise following their biological deaths.18 Again, I don’t have the space to
defend this, but such a claim seems consistent with the Westminster Confes-
sion of Faith chapter 32; Answer 57 of the Heidelberg Catechism; and so
on. One biblical passage that provides prima facie affirmation of immediate
postmortem presence in Paradise is Luke 23:43, Jesus’s promise to the robber
on the cross. As such, I want to sketch a way to make sense of this promise,
“today you will be with me in Paradise.” But, I want to put “today”—that is,
immediacy—in the context of the eschatological resurrection.
To do so requires a model of the metaphysics of time within which it’s
coherent to say that one’s eschatological (that is, at Christ’s return) bodily
resurrection follows immediately after one’s biological death. Providing such
a model isn’t at all easy. Even so, I want to outline such a model so that the
common critiques of “immediate resurrection” (in particular, that it requires
individuals popping up in the resurrection world at different times) might be
put to pasture. Before I do that, let me briefly mention models of time that I
don’t use.
I don’t affirm eternalism or four-dimensionalism. Eternalism is a thesis
about time that says all times are ontologically on par; they all exist, even
though they don’t all exist at the same time. On eternalism, the year 1981
is just as real as 2017. Four-dimensionalism is a thesis about the way things
persist through time. It posits that substances are “spread out” over time,
in much the way that objects are spread out over space, and are divided up
into “time slices,” “temporal parts,” or “person stages,” such that it’s the
cumulative temporal parts of any given thing—taken as a whole—that is the
substance.19 On such a view, Jones, a human person, is not wholly present
at any one given time. All that exists at one particular time is a “time-slice”
(or “temporal part” or “person stage”) of Jones. Jones, the substance, is the
whole “space-time worm” (think of the segments of a worm as analogous
to time-slices/temporal parts). This way of persisting through time is called
perdurance.20 Again, for lack of space, I cannot fully spell out my rejection of
these views, but I reject them for theological reasons. Briefly, it seems to me
that an implication of these views is that temporal parts of the entire creation
and individual created things (e.g., humans) are never redeemed. They are
eternally “stuck” within the ravages of sin and evil.21 I could say more about
this, but I need to press on.
For the purposes of sketching my model of immediate resurrection, I deny
“presentism” too. Presentism is the model of time that’s seen as something
of a contradiction to eternalism. This is a view of time that seeks to provide
a metaphysic for what intuitively seems to be the case: all that actually
exists is whatever’s present. The past no longer exists and the future does
not yet exist. If it’s time T1, T1 (and all things at T1) is all that exists. If it’s
time T2, T2 (and all things at T2) is all that exists. (Compare: on eternalism,
supposing that T1 and T2 denote different moments in time, both T1 and T2
eternally exist.) On presentism, if things persist through time, they do so by
enduring. That is, things that persist through time are wholly present at each
individual moment in time. Again, all too briefly, though I am sympathetic
to this account of time, I ultimately reject it because it cannot provide a way
for a biologically dead human being immediately to enter the time of the
eschatological bodily resurrection—a future point in time, a time that, given
presentism, doesn’t exist. As you can see here, my theology is driving my
metaphysics.
So, then, what model do I use? The model I put forward is a model of time
I call “Eschatological Presentism” (EP). It’s an amended version of what
philosopher Barry Dainton calls “Compound Presentism.”22 EP is a view that
borrows from four-dimensionalist/eternalist views and presentism.
To get an idea of how EP works, consider Figure 14.123
On the x-axis are temporal co-ordinates (viz., T1, T2, T3, T4). On the y-axis
are sum totals of reality denoted by S1, S2, S3, and S4. TΩ denotes the time of
the eschatological resurrection, the return of Christ. Moreover, assume that
(borrowing Dainton’s words), “the sum total of reality consists of two coex-
isting but non-simultaneous very brief reality-slices (each spatially three-
dimensional).”24 These reality slices are denoted in Figure 14.1 by the letters
Figure 14.1 Eschatological Presentism. Source: Graphic courtesy of the author.

A, B, C, D, and R. By deploying a notion of reality slices—and that there are

two moments in time that nonsimultaneously coexist in the sum total of what
exists—I borrow from four-dimensionalism. That is, the (capital “P”) Present
is “spread out” over two times, as are the things within the Present. The sum
total of what exists are two temporal moments and two reality slices (e.g.,
T1+TΩ and A+R). But, borrowing from presentism, when one pre-TΩ moment
is (small “p”) present, that’s the only time and reality slice in the pre-TΩ
temporal series that exists. When T1 is present and A exists, there is no T2/B
that exists alongside it. When T2 is present and B exists, there is no T3/C that
exists alongside it (nor T1/A before it). And so on. Let us say that a time is
(small “p”) present if and only if there is a reality slice at the intersection of a
T- and S-coordinate. So, we can conceive of the timeline T1 . . . TΩ-1 the way
a presentist would. The only time that exists in the T1 . . . TΩ–1 time series is
whatever time is present.
On EP, the temporal moment that does exist alongside each pre-TΩ moment
is TΩ, the time of Christ’s return and the resurrection of the dead. The sum
total of reality when T1 is present is S1, and S1 consists of T1, TΩ, and their
corresponding reality slices, namely, A and R. And so on for each pre-TΩ
moment. When a given pre-TΩ moment is present and its corresponding
reality slice exists, the only other temporal moment that exists is TΩ and its
reality slice, R. The Present is two temporal moments compounded together.
The sum total of reality is two reality slices compounded together (e.g., A and
R when T1 and TΩ are Present); reality is “spread out” over two (small “p”)
present moments.
I mention above that this view of time also requires that the things in
the Present be spread out across two temporal moments (e.g., T1 and TΩ).
For space reasons, I’ll bracket out discussion of all the possible and
actual things that do or could exist. Instead, and to the purposes of this
chapter, I’ll focus on humans. A human being, on this view, is such that
she is “spread out” over the present pre-TΩ temporal moment and TΩ. For
example, if Jones, a candidate human, exists when T1 is present, she exists
in the Present T1+TΩ. Moreover, if Jones exists when T1 is present, she
has a reality slice in A and, because TΩ is in the Present with T1, Jones
also has a reality slice in R. If Jones is still alive when T2 is present, she
exists in the Present T2+TΩ (existing as a member of the corresponding
reality slices, viz., B and R). On this way of thinking, given that Jones
is “spread out” across two times and composed of two reality slices, she
can be thought of as a “space-time pill bug.”25 (Compare: the “space-time
worm” of four-dimensionalism where, supposing for example that Jones
existed for ten temporal moments, she’d be composed of ten reality slices
[“temporal parts”]. On EP, Jones only ever is [at most] composed of two
reality slices.)
While there is pre-eschatological time (i.e., while there are temporal

moments that exist pre-TΩ), a human being is a space-time pill bug composed
of two reality slices (or temporal parts, or whatever descriptor one likes) and
spread out over two present moments in the Present—the Eschatological
Present. It should be obvious by now why I label it the Eschatological Pres-
ent: the eschaton is in the Present with each pre-TΩ temporal moment. This
is, no doubt, a bizarre thesis.26 But, if it’s coherent, it carries some important
consequences.
First, it’s obvious that there’s no intermediate state, nor is there a need for
any sort of temporally interim state between one’s death and one’s bodily
resurrection. To see this, suppose that (looking at Figure 14.1), at T1, Jones
is alive, but, at T2, she’s dead. When T2 is present, where (or when) is Jones?
The answer is clear: she’s at TΩ as a part of the R reality slice, the return of
Christ and resurrection of the dead. When Jones dies, she’s immediately at the
eschatological resurrection of the dead. Moreover, she’s there with everyone
else who is to resurrect because every human who is to resurrect is spread out
over some pre-TΩ reality slice and TΩ/R.
Second, Eschatological Presentism is either consistent with or helps safe-
guard some of the theological affirmations I list in the second section. I pres-
ent them again here:
a. Bodily resurrection is in no way superfluous to a human being’s life after

death.
b. We have good exegetical reasons for thinking that redeemed humans
immediately reach Paradise and the presence of the incarnate Christ the
moment following their biological deaths.
c. Bodily resurrection requires that the body that dies is numerically the
same body that rises again to everlasting life.
d. The general resurrection of the dead happens at Christ’s return.
e. The purpose of the human is to be the localizable, visible, and corporeal
representative of Yahweh’s rule in His cosmic temple.
f. The teleologically fulfilled and eschatological state of the cosmos is such
that Heaven and earth are joined into a cosmic temple filled with Yahweh’s
glory.
In particular, it’s either consistent with or safeguards five of the six of these.
The one exception is (c). It’s not yet clear how EP might help secure that
bodily resurrection requires that the body that dies is numerically the same
body that rises again to everlasting life.
The reason that it’s not yet clear how EP is consistent with (c) is because EP,
by itself, is not enough. There’s an additional thesis that needs, even if briefly,
to be offered: a particular thesis about human beings: hylemorphic dualism.
HYLEMORPHIC DUALISM AND

ESCHATOLOGICAL PRESENTISM
Let’s take stock of our progress. In an attempt to provide a way for dead
human beings immediately to reach the eschatological bodily resurrection,
I’ve put forward Eschatological Presentism, a thesis both about the nature
of time and the nature of persistence through time. The EP model posits that
time and (at least some) things in time are spread out between two temporal
moments, one of which is (at least, when there’s pre-eschatological time) the
pre-eschatological “present” and the other is the temporal moment of Christ’s
return. This latter temporal moment I’ve labeled: TΩ. And, so I say, doing so
provides an account of resurrection that denies an intermediate state; it denies
“soul sleep” (or anything relevantly similar); and it denies that resurrected
humans are popping up one by one at different temporal moments rather than
simultaneously at the general resurrection. In other words, EP allows us to
suggest that, when a human dies, she immediately reaches the eschaton, but
not without the rest of us.27
The preceding ruminations account only for (a), (b), (d), (e), and (f) in the
above list. I still need to account for (c). And, at least prima facie, it’s not
obvious how the numerical identity of the body is secured on EP. Perhaps, at
this point in the chapter, the best I can say is that EP is consistent with (c).
But, it’s also—at least, so far—seemingly consistent with body-switching, so
long as the person is spread out over the pre-TΩ temporal moment and TΩ.
In my view, the best metaphysic on offer to explain how a human body
persists through time (no matter the theory of persistence one uses), through
death and immediate resurrection is what I’ll call a broadly Thomistic hyle-
morphic account of human beings. By “broadly Thomistic,” I mean to sug-
gest that I borrow my understanding of hylemorphism from Thomas Aquinas
and his modern-day expositors. I use the qualifier “broadly” to suggest that
my preferred version of hylemorphism takes a number of exceptions to Aqui-
nas’s own outworking, the first and foremost of which is that I deny—contra
most (all?) Thomists—that human souls can exist independent of a human
body. Fortunately, because I’m constructing a metaphysic for skipping a dis-
embodied intermediate state, this issue, and my disagreement with Thomas
on this score, needn’t detain us. Nor, for that matter, should any discussion
of the current debates between “survivalism” and “corruptionism” in the
Thomist camps.28 Given, then, the list of theological affirmations I’ve listed
above, and that the point of this chapter is to provide an account of immedi-
ate bodily resurrection, allow me to give a brief overview of my hylemor-
phic account of human beings and the identity conditions it provides for the
numerical identity between the body that dies and the body that resurrects at
Christ’s return.
Hylemorphism is a metaphysic concerning things that exist. For my pur-

poses, obviously enough, the things on which I wish to focus are human
beings. On hylemorphism generally, and my own account specifically, human
beings are substances. That is, they are genuinely one thing, not a collection
or aggregation of things (like puzzles and Lego sets). And, on my way of
thinking, human substances are such that the following claims hold (more
about some of the terminology anon):
6. A human being29 = A human body
7. A human body = a human form/prime matter composite
8. A human body ≠ prime matter
9. A human being ≠ a human form
10. A human being ≠ prime matter
In (6)–(10), note that by “=” I mean numerical/strict identity.30 Take our can-
didate human, Jones. On my account, Jones is numerically identical to her
body. Jones just is her body. So, the very obvious reason why I take:
(a) Bodily resurrection is in no way superfluous to a human being’s life
after death to be the case is precisely because Jones has no hope of life after
death without her bodily resurrection. The only way she could live again is
if her body does, because she and her body is one thing.31 This also provides
further reason for why I think (c) is true, that is, that the numerical identity
between one’s dead body and one’s resurrection body must obtain. For, if not,
then one doesn’t resurrect.
Further, on my view, a human is a very specific sort of entity, namely an
organism, a living biological substance. To further label my broadly Thomis-
tic hylemorphism, I’ll adopt the (recently deployed) moniker “hylemorphic
animalism,” wherein the term “animalism” denotes a philosophical thesis that
posits that human persons/beings are identical to human organisms.32 Why
this distinction is important will become apparent shortly.
To make good on the promissory note I wrote just before listing (6)–(10),
I’ll further explain certain, nonobvious, terms in the list. In particular, I’ll
flesh out, albeit briefly, the terms “form” and “prime matter.” This will help
explain how my animalism is consistent with dualism. To do this, I first
need to address—again, briefly—one of the driving questions in hylemor-
phic metaphysics: what causes what exists potentially to exist actually? To
answer this question, hylemorphists (generally) posit four causes: an efficient
(or agent) cause, a formal cause, a material cause, and a final cause. These
explain the move from potential to actual.
Here’s a rough and ready example of how this works. Consider Michelan-
gelo’s statue, David. The efficient cause of David’s existence (i.e., one cause
for why it doesn’t remain a concept in the artist’s mind) is Michelangelo’s
hammering, sculpting, and the like. The formal cause, the form, of David’s
existence—in that it’s David and not some other statue—is its design,
structure, and shape (at least). David’s material cause, its matter, is the
marble out of which David is made; the matter marks David out as a concrete
individual and provides the potential ways in which David could be shaped
and structured. David’s final cause is David’s purpose or telos; it tells us why
David was created, namely to be a piece of art that functions in such and such
a way. Why did David move from potential thing to actual thing? Because
Michelangelo had (a) particular reason(s) for David’s existence; David has a
purpose. That’s the final cause for why David actually exists.
Now, I say this is a rough and ready example because statues and human
beings are, on hylemorphism, quite different sorts of things. At the very least,
on my version of hylemorphism, statues aren’t substances. They are, instead,
aggregates. They are one thing, but only in a derivative sense, a sense that
must appeal to the bits of material that make it up. Humans, on the other hand
are substances, one thing. You might think (rightly) that a human has parts.
But, contrary to aggregates, a human is not the sum of her parts. This is for
very many reasons, reasons that I haven’t the room to explain here. So, for the
foregoing, let’s grant that humans are substances and statues are not.
Here’s why this is important. That a human is a substance and a statue
isn’t tells us something about the kind of form that is the formal cause of a
human and the formal cause of a statue. The formal causes of all substances
are called “substantial forms.” Note that this doesn’t suggest that the forms
are substances. Rather, it suggests that they are forms that account for why
the particular things they inform are in fact substances. The formal causes of
nonsubstances are called “accidental forms.” Now, substances have accidental
forms, too. They allow for substances to have certain accidents predicated of
them (e.g., Socrates sitting). But the idea is that nonsubstances do not have,
as their formal cause, a substantial form. Humans, as substances, do.
Further, for living substances, the substantial form provides not just its
formal cause but also its efficient and final causes. The explanation for how
a living thing comes to be what it is designed to be—how it grows and
develops—is filled out by its substantial form. Substantial forms provide the
essence of a given substance; they explain why a particular thing is the thing
it is and not something else. Hylemorphists call the substantial form of liv-
ing things “soul.”33 So, the soul of a human being is her substantial form. It
explains why and how she’s a human and not some other thing.
I say in (7) that a human body (i.e., a human being) is identical to a form/
prime matter composite. With this way of phrasing things, I take a departure
from (at least, on my reading) a number of Thomists. For, on many occasions
in hylemorphic literature, a human is said to be a form/matter composite or a
composite of body and soul.34 But, again, that needn’t detain us here. Much
of the debate surrounding this particular issue is wrapped up in whether a
body and soul can come apart such that the soul survives. Since I’m eschew-
ing that discussion for the reasons given above, I needn’t explain why I think
a hylemorphist should deny that a hylemorphic compound is a compound

between a soul and a body.
I’ve said a bit about what a form is, particularly a human soul. What, then,
is prime matter? Prime matter is not a body; it is not visible/corporeal mat-
ter. On my view, human souls explain why a particular body is human. What
explains why a human is a material thing is prime matter, the principle of
pure potency. Now, I grant that prime matter is a deeply mysterious sort of
entity. On the hylemorphic scheme, it is completely nonactual, nonabstract,
and not nothing.35 In fact, according to hylemorphism, there just never is an
instance where prime matter exists without some form or other informing it.
The same is true (barring what most Thomists, at least, say about the human
substantial form) for substantial forms: they never exist apart from inform-
ing prime matter. One comes to know of these two metaphysical constituents
via abstraction; they explain the act/potency of a given concrete entity. One
doesn’t come to know about them because one observes them existing “out
there” apart from concrete hylemorphic compounds.
On my version of hylemorphism, there’s a perfectly good reason for this
(aside from the obvious incoherence of saying that a thing that’s purely
potential actually exists in pure potentiality): substances are not aggregates of
metaphysical parts. Substances are one thing (in Aquinas’s terminology unum
simpliciter). And what accounts for this essential unity is the inseparability
of the formal and material causes. If the substantial form of a thing could
exist apart from any material principle, it, the form, would be the substance;
the physical being—the hylemorphic compound—would be an aggregate, its
matter being an add-on to the substance, the form. The same holds for the
human body. It, too, is not separable from a human form. A human form, after
all, just is the thing that explains why a human body is an actual (and living!)
human body. A body without a human soul is not a human body (more than
that: bodies just are actualized prime matter). This is just the sort of thing I
mean to imply by deploying the “=” symbol in (7).
Much more could be said about this.36 But I hope this gives some insight
into the way I think about hylemorphism and what I take human souls to
be. Since I take it that there’s no disembodied state, that an existing human
soul is a sufficient condition for the existence of a human body, and that a
human body is identical to a human being, I think I can offer (borrowing from
Christopher Brown) the following set of identity conditions for a human’s
persistence through time:
(HI): For any material substances x and y, x at time, T1, is numerically identical
to y at time, T2 (where T2 is any time later than T1), if and only if the substantial
form of x at time, T1, is numerically identical to the substantial form of y at
time, T2.37
With this, we can look back to Figure 14.1. Suppose that Jones, our human,
is in reality slice A at time T1. Suppose further that there’s a human in reality
slice R at time TΩ that has the numerically same substantial form as Jones. By
(HI), that human at TΩ is identical to Jones. Further still, suppose that, at time
T3, Jones is dead (say she’s dying at T2). If the numerically same substantial
form persists through T1 and T2, then Jones does, too (as a human organism).
And if the substantial form of the human at TΩ is numerically identical to the
substantial form of Jones at T1 and T2, then the human being at TΩ is Jones
(a human organism). So, even if Jones is dead at T3, the human being at TΩ
is still Jones.
At this point, what I’ve said concerning (HI) and resurrection appears
consistent with a position that might violate a principle many metaphysicians
affirm, a principle I call “Locke’s Axiom.” According to this axiom, what
begins to exist and then fails to exist cannot begin to exist again. Elsewhere
this axiom has been termed the “principle of non-repeatability.”38 If one is
concerned not to violate this sort of principle, it’s helpful that EP gets around
potential worries about humans popping into and out of existence. For on EP
a human being is spread out across two temporal moments. Prior to and at
the eschaton, one of those moments is the eschatological moment, TΩ. What
this means is that, during the pre-eschatological period in which she’s alive,
Jones, a form/prime matter composite (living organism), is spread out over
one pre-eschatological temporal moment and the time of the general bodily
resurrection, TΩ. Neither Jones, nor her soul, goes completely out of existence
at her death. Instead, upon her pre-eschatological death, she immediately
finds herself at the general resurrection, still existing in the sum of all reality,
with all the rest of the redeemed.
Notice here how central the human soul is for this account. Given (HI) and
EP, it’s precisely the soul that is a necessary and sufficient condition for the
existence of a living human organism. It’s what explains how an organism is
actual and it’s what provides for an organism’s numerical identity at all times
at which it exists, in this life and in the next. The bits of informed matter that
come to compose the human organism do not. And though prime matter is
a necessary metaphysical cause of the human being, it is not sufficient for a
human’s existence. It must be informed by a human soul to result in an actual
human being.
By contrast, I think physicalist accounts of the human organism struggle
to provide criteria for an organism’s diachronic numerical identity. Here, I’ll
understand “physicalism” to be the thesis that human beings are identical to
things that have physical properties essentially, and that are composed only of
physical parts.39 It should be clear, with this understanding of “physicalism,”
why hylemorphism isn’t physicalist. For, though my hylemorphic animalism
suggests that humans have physical properties and parts essentially, they’re
not composed only of physical parts; rather, they are dualistic form/prime
matter composites. Now, Trenton Merricks, a Christian and physicalist, high-
lights the physicalist’s struggle to provide criteria for a human’s diachronic
identity. And, he bites the bullet. By his lights, anticriterialism—the view that
there just are no informative necessary and sufficient conditions for personal
identity over time—is the best way forward for physicalist accounts of iden-
tity over time and through resurrection.40
It’s hard to disagree with Merricks on this point. For, at least with respect
to Christian thinkers doing work in this area—particularly with respect to
accounts of resurrection—the best physicalist view on offer for providing
criteria for an organism’s identity is in the work of Peter van Inwagen. To
see that this is so, just check the sorts of identity conditions assumed in recent
physicalist literature on resurrection. The “Falling Elevator Model” used by
Dean Zimmerman and Kevin Corcoran and van Inwagen’s own “Simulacrum
Thesis,” for example, each assume van Inwagen’s account of organism iden-
tity over time. For space reasons, I cannot explicate fully van Inwagen’s view,
but I can provide a brief synopsis of a problem his account faces—a problem
that generalizes over the previously mentioned models. At first blush, van
Inwagen successfully provides criteria of diachronic identity for an organism;
and one might think this is enough (given that he’s an animalist). But there’s
a problem: by his own admission, his account of an organism’s diachronic
identity presupposes that the life of the organism remains numerically identi-
cal over time. What’s central to organism identity is life identity. But, again
by his own admission, he cannot provide criteria of identity for a life.41 Now,
if lives, on his account, were primitive and unanalyzable, then no problem.
But, on his account, they’re neither primitive nor unanalyzable. So, taking
his position to its logical conclusion ends up doing just what Merricks claims
all physicalists must do: assume some uninformative necessary and sufficient
conditions for object identity over time; that is, deny that there are criteria of
identity.
For those of us whose intuitions beg for criteria of identity, anticriterialism
is a nonstarter. In any case, though I do think van Inwagen gives a nice and
coherent account of what an organism is, in the end, his view fails to provide
informative necessary and sufficient conditions for an organism’s persistence
through time. And, if that’s right, then views borrowing from his account of
an organism’s persistence cannot provide criteria for the numerical identity
of the body in the resurrection. Moreover, if it’s correct that there are infor-
mative necessary and sufficient conditions for the numerical identity of the
human organism over time, and if it’s correct that physicalism cannot provide
them, then physicalism cannot provide an account for a human person’s life
after death. This is because, ex hypothesi, on the sorts of physicalist accounts
I have in mind, a human person and her organism are identical. Here’s the
upshot: I take it that it’s not too much of a gamble to suggest that any view of
the human being that cannot account for a human’s life after death is incom-
patible with Christian theology. Thus, physicalism appears incompatible with
Christian theology. However, with EP, my account of hylemorphism can
account for the life after death and bodily resurrection of a human person;
thus, it is compatible with Christian theology.
CONCLUSION
My fundamental goal in this chapter is modest: to show that there is (at least)
one model of time and human beings that might allow for an immediate
resurrection account that satisfies the spirit, rather than the letter, of believ-
ing in the intermediate state. That is to say, I aim to show that physicalism
is neither the sole owner of immediate resurrection theories nor their best fit.
To help motivate my position, I’ve offered some biblical theological reasons
for thinking that humans are essentially embodied beings. With this in hand,
and affirming immediate postmortem presence in Paradise, I offer Eschato-
logical Presentism and a hylemorphic account of human beings. With these
two things, I provide a model of immediate eschatological resurrection and
provide an account of necessarily embodied human beings that denies physi-
calism. Indeed, I hope I’ve provided some reason to think that one can lose
the intermediate state without losing one’s soul. In fact, it may be the only
way to do so!42
NOTES
1. James T. Turner, “On the Horns of a Dilemma: Bodily Resurrection or Disem-

bodied Paradise?” International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 75, no. 5 (2015):
406–421; James T. Turner, “On Two Reasons Christian Theologians Should Reject
the Intermediate State,” Journal of Reformed Theology 11 (2017): 121–139.
2. I’m using “the intermediate state” in the narrow sense defined above, not as
a term to denote a general disembodied state that precedes bodily resurrection. I do
deny that there are such states, but that’s an argument to be made elsewhere. I also
deny all accounts of Purgatory. See my arguments in James T. Turner, “Purgatory
Puzzles: Moral Perfection and the Parousia,” Journal of Analytic Theology 5 (2017):
197–219. On the narrow sort of view about “the intermediate state” in Christian tradi-
tion, see Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Leicester: IVP, 1994); N. T. Wright,
Surprised by Hope (New York: HarperOne, 2008); Joshua R. Farris, The Soul of
Theological Anthropology (London: Routledge, 2017), 131–150; Matthew Levering,
Jesus and the Demise of Death: Resurrection, Afterlife, and the Fate of the Christian
(Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012), 1–22. In his Benedictus Deus of 1336,
Pope Benedict XII taught a view consistent with the intermediate state. See Peter C.
Phan, “Roman Catholic Theology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology, ed. Jerry
L. Walls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 216. On the Apostolic Fathers and
Apologists, see Brian Daley, The Hope of the Early Church (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1991), 14–24. For a theological titan, see also Daley, The Hope of
the Early Church, 141–146 for an overview of Augustine’s affirmation of the inter-
mediate state. Or see Augustine, “Enchiridion,” in Vol. 3 of Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 272;
Augustine, “On the Soul and Its Origin,” in Vol. 5 of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
ed. Philip Schaff, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 2.14, 337; Augus-
tine, City of God, 433–445, 20.23; Augustine, “Reply to Faustus the Manichaean,” in
Vol. 4 of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff (Peabody, MA: Hendrick-
son Publishers, 2004), 341. 33.1. For Aquinas see, for example, Thomas Aquinas, The
Soul, trans. John Patrick Rowan (London: B. Herder Book Co., 1951), article 1. For
Calvin see John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.xxv.6, etc. Many more
could be cited.
3. For the sorts of views that are disparaged, see, for example, John Hick, Death
and Eternal Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 278–296;
John Hick, “Resurrection Worlds and Bodies,” Mind 82, no. 327 (July 1973):
409–412. Hick in effect denies a general resurrection because, on his account, people
individually and at different moments pop into the resurrection world. John Cooper’s
complaint against all immediate resurrection views is that they deny a literal general
resurrection. This is a worry I aim to get around. See John W. Cooper, Body, Soul,
and Life Everlasting (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 106. In the philosophical
literature, there’s the “Falling Elevator Model” of postmortem survival, a view pos-
ited by Dean Zimmerman, Kevin Corcoran, Timothy O’Connor, and Jonathan Jacobs
(perhaps others) that suggests that, at the moment of death (or just prior), a human’s
body fissions leaving both a fissioned off corpse and sending a fissioned off body to
the afterlife. One might count such a view as consistent with an “immediate resur-
rection” view, too. None of them say in print (so far as I’m aware), just when the fis-
sioned human being “jumps” to. So, it’s not clear whether these views deny a general
resurrection or not. See Dean W. Zimmerman, “The Compatibility of Materialism
and Survival: The ‘Falling Elevator’ Model,” Faith and Philosophy 16, no. 2 (April,
1999): 194–212; Kevin Corcoran, “Physical Persons and Postmortem Survival,” in
Soul, Body, and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons, ed. Kevin
Corcoran (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 201–217; Timothy O’Connor
and Jonathan Jacobs, “Emergent Individuals and the Resurrection,” European Journal
for Philosophy of Religion 2 (2010): 69–88.
4. See, for example, Cooper’s complaints against immediate resurrection views
in Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, 166–167. In my view, Cooper does not anticipate
well the sorts of physicalist accounts that crop up around the beginning of the twenty-
first century.
5. Consider what Aquinas borrows from Damascene, namely, that because man
is made in God’s image it must be the case that man is intelligent and is the funda-
mental principle of his actions (i.e., free willed) (Summa Theologiae, IIa., prologue).
Jaroslav Pelikan outlines a Patristic development of this sort of thought in Christian-
ity and Classical Culture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 121–135.
For “communal” sorts of emphases, see, for example, Stanley J. Grenz, The Social
God and the Relational Self (Louisville, KY: Westminster, 2001).
6. Some recent examples: G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 70ff; throughout J. Richard Middle-
ton, The Liberating Image (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2005); Willem Vangemeren,
The Progress of Redemption (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1988), 52ff; James K.
A. Smith, You Are What You Love (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2016), 172–173.
7. Cf. G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 163–166, 401. In this
work, Beale argues that the tabernacle and temple of the OT were, themselves, micro-
cosms of the entire created order; Jon D. Levenson, “The Temple and the World,” The
Journal of Religion 64/3 (July 1984): 275–298; Benjamin L. Gladd and Matthew S.
Harmon, Making All Things New (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2016); J. Rich-
ard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,
2014), 46–49, 164ff; J. Richard. Middleton, The Liberating Image, 81ff; John H.
Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009).
For a critique of this view, see Daniel I. Block, “Eden: A Temple? A Reassessment
of the Biblical Evidence,” in From Creation to New Creation: Essays in Honor of G.
K. Beale, ed. Daniel M. Gurtner and Benjamin L. Gladd (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson
Publishers, 2013), 3–29.
8. Cf. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 163–166, 401; Gladd and
Harmon, Making All Things New, 135, 149; Middleton, A New Heaven and a New
Earth, 107.
9. Middleton, The Liberating Image, 25–26. My emphasis and insert. Perhaps
Middleton’s point is slightly overstated, for there are systematicians tracking with
this line of thought. See David Fergusson, “Creation,” in The Oxford Handbook of
Systematic Theology, 74–75.
10. Importantly, but not of central relevance to my point in this chapter, imaging
God is not merely royal; it’s also priestly. That is, given that the thing over which
and in which God rules—the cosmos—is a temple, helping to rule and sustain the
cosmos is a function of tending and keeping a temple, a priestly duty. Middleton, A
New Heaven and a New Earth, 45ff; Middleton, The Liberating Image, 89ff; Beale,
The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 68ff; Walton, The Lost World of Adam and
Eve, 104–127. I cite what I do here not to suggest that there are no competing views,
but simply to get my project up and running. One theologian that works with oppos-
ing conclusions to my reading of the biblical text is Joshua Farris. He seems to think
that this functional account implies some further substantive account of what sort of
thing a human is. While I agree that—given the precise functions Yahweh desires of
his images—that some further substantive account falls out of the functional account,
Farris and I disagree on the sort of substantive model we think is implied. He’s a
substance dualist; I am not, as you see in what follows. Cf. Farris, The Soul of Theo-
logical Anthropology, 35.
11. Middleton, The Liberating Image, 25.
12. On the importance of the cosmos and Yahweh’s image not being crafted by
human hands, see Joel B. Green, “Eschatology and the Nature of Humans: A Recon-
sideration of Pertinent Biblical Evidence,” Science and Christian Belief 14/1 (April
2002): 48–49; Middleton, The Liberating Image, 121–130; Beale, The Temple and the
Church’s Mission, 152.
13. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIa Q.5 A.3–5. This is not to say that everyone
who posits a classical beatific vision is ignorant of the Ancient Near Eastern back-
ground of the creation narratives. Matthew Levering, for example, seems well aware.
See his Jesus and the Demise of Death.
14. Joshua Mugg and James T. Turner, Jr., “Why a Bodily Resurrection? The
Bodily Resurrection and the Mind/Body Relation,” Journal of Analytic Theology 5
(2017): 121–144.
15. Cf. David Fergusson, Creation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), 4–9;
Richard Bauckham, Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation
(London: Darton, Longman, & Todd, 2010), 157; W. Waite Willis, Jr., “A Theology
of Resurrection: Its Meaning for Jesus, Us, and God,” in Resurrection: The Origin
and Future of a Biblical Doctrine, ed. James H. Charlesworth (London: T&T Clark,
2006), 212; Middleton, A New Heaven and New Earth, 131–175; Richard Bauckham,
“Eschatology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology, 308–311; Mugg and
Turner, “Why a Bodily Resurrection,” 122–128.
16. My emphasis.
17. See John Cooper’s worries in his, “Whose Interpretation? Which Anthropol-
ogy? Biblical Hermeneutics, Scientific Naturalism, and the Body-Soul Debate,” in
Neuroscience and the Soul, eds. Thomas M. Crisp, Steven L. Porter, and Gregg A.
Ten Elshof (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), 238–257.
18. There is now a growing body of literature for a view of Purgatory that’s
purportedly consistent with Protestant soteriology. See, especially, Jerry L. Walls,
Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2015); Jerry L.
Walls, Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012); David Vander Laan, “The Sanctification Argument for Purgatory,” Faith
and Philosophy 24, no. 3 (2007): 331–339; Justin D. Barnard, “Purgatory and the
Dilemma of Sanctification,” Faith and Philosophy 24, no. 3 (2007): 311–330; Neal
Judisch, “Sanctification, Satisfaction, and the Purpose of Purgatory,” Faith and Phi-
losophy 26, no. 2 (2009): 167–185. I’ve addressed these versions of Purgatory (and
offer an argument against the very notion) in James T. Turner, “Purgatory Puzzles:
Moral Perfection and the Parousia.”
19. Which term one wants to use to explain four-dimensionalism will depend
on which flavor of four-dimensionalism one espouses. For a nuanced overview, see
Michael Rea, “Four-Dimensionalism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, eds.
Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003),
246–280. For a “person stage” account, see Theodore Sider, Four-Dimensionalism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
20. Though Sally Haslanger argues that stage-theoretic accounts are theories of
“exdurance” rather than “perdurance.” Sally Haslanger, “Persistence Through Time,”
in The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, 319. For more on the endurance/perdurance
distinction, see Neil McKinnon, “The Endurance/Perdurance Distinction,” Austral-
asian Journal of Philosophy 80, no. 3 (September 2002): 288–306.
21. Suppose that the substance Susie is in pain at time T1. On four-dimensional-
ism, she’s eternally in pain at that moment. That pain never goes away. Moreover,
because Susie’s temporal part at T1—the part that’s in pain—is essential to Susie,
God cannot eliminate the pain. Multiply this sort of evil over all the humans that have
existed and make many of them horrendous, and one can see why this is intuitively
problematic. God can never redeem—that is, renew—those parts of his eternally
existing cosmos.
22. You can find an explanation of Compound Presentism in Barry Dainton, Time
and Space, 2nd ed. (London: Acumen, 2010), 95–101.
23. Figure idea borrowed (though amended for my purposes) from Dainton, Time
and Space, 96.
24. Dainton, Time and Space, 95–96. Note that, as Dainton warns with his own
similar figure, “temporal dynamism cannot be fully captured in a static diagram.”
Figure 14.1 appears to show that all the times coexist. But that is not correct. Think,
rather, that when there is a vacancy at the S and T co-ordinates, that time does not
exist. For example, at T3, T1 does not exist—there is nothing at the intersection of T1
and an S coordinate when T3 is populated.
25. I owe this expression to Thom Atkinson who coined the phrase when I
explained EP in personal conversation.
26. Among the hostages my view gives to fortune is that time, on Eschatological
Presentism, is discrete (i.e., finitely divisible). This is quite against the “received”
view in the philosophy of time, namely, that time is continuous (i.e., infinitely divis-
ible). It requires a discrete view because I need discrete temporal moments that can
be compounded together in the Eschatological Present. Moreover, my view requires
that humans, for example, have a temporal part that endures through the pre-TΩ time
series. Normally, temporal parts are eternally existing and static (on four-dimension-
alism) or else one wholly moves through individually present moments. Additionally,
I don’t have any way of spelling out how time and things in time progress after the TΩ
moment. This last problem, though, isn’t unique to me. I don’t know of any thinker
who presumes to know with all clarity just what sort of existence awaits us in the New
Creation or how time (if there is time) will work in that cosmos. I’m inclined to think
that, if a compound presentist theory of time is correct, that it continues into the New
Creation. But arguing for this is a project for another day.
27. It’s possible that at least one person in the tradition thinks in a nearly identical
way. The Luther scholar, Paul Althaus, suggests that Luther’s personal eschatology
is the following: “For those who have died, the Last Day comes very soon after their
death—even ‘immediately’ when they die. ‘Each of us has his own Last Day when he
dies.’ Therefore we arrive at the end of the world and the Last Day at the moment of
our death. And yet it comes no sooner to the departed than to us and to all generations
after us until the temporal end of the world” (Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin
Luther, trans. Robert C. Schultz [Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1966], 416).
28. Survivalism is the idea that, at the death of the body, the human person sur-
vives as a soul (either identical to it or constituted by it). Corruptionism suggests that,
though the soul survives, the human person doesn’t. I get these terms from Patrick
Toner, “On Hylemorphism and Personal Identity,” European Journal of Philosophy
19/3 (September 2011): 454–473. But Toner originally labels survivalism the “alter-
native [Thomist] view” and corruptionism the “standard [Thomist] view.” Patrick
Toner, “Personhood and Death in St. Thomas Aquinas,” History of Philosophy Quar-
terly 26/2 (April 2009): 121.
29. For Christological reasons, in what follows I deploy the term “human being”
rather than “human person.” For, on my account, all human beings are persons. But
not all human beings are human persons (Jesus, for example, is a human being but not
a human person; he’s a divine Person, viz., God the Son).
30. Harold Noonan and Ben Curtis, “Identity,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Phi-
losophy (Spring 2017 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/spr2017/entries/identity/. Accessed May 26, 2017.
31. Notice the copula is purposefully in the singular.
32. See Eric T. Olson, The Human Animal (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999); Andrew M. Bailey, “Animalism,” Philosophy Compass 10, no. 12 (2015):
867–883; Patrick Toner, “Hylemorphic Animalism,” Philosophical Studies 155, no. 1
(2011): 65–81; Mugg and Turner, “Why a Bodily Resurrection?” 138ff.
33. In the Aristotelian and Thomist literature, at any rate, there are three types of
soul: vegetative, animal, and human. Each of these describes a particular sort of set of
boundary conditions that mark out the sorts of capacities available to a living entity in
each class. For space reasons, I’ll not get into that here.
34. For example, Eleonore Stump, Aquinas (London: Routledge, 2003), 203. Rob-
ert Pasnau spells out Aquinas’s view in this way in, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 8ff; Jason T. Eberl, “Aquinas
on the Nature of Human Beings,” Review of Metaphysics 58, no. 2 (December 2004):
333–365. It’s tricky trying to interpret Aquinas on this score. As Christopher Hughes
rightly notes, Aquinas often seems to equivocate on the term “matter.” Christopher
Hughes, “Matter and Actuality in Aquinas,” in Thomas Aquinas: Contemporary Philo-
sophical Perspectives, ed. Brian Davies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 70.
35. Jeffrey Brower and John Haldane are Thomists that think of prime matter as
a “stuff of no kind.” John Haldane, “A Return to Form in the Philosophy of Mind,”
Ratio 11 no. 3 (December 1998): 263; Jeffrey E. Brower, “Matter, Form, and Indi-
viduation,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, eds. Brian Davies and Eleonore
Stump (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 93.
36. I address all of this more fully in Turner, “We Look: PhD diss.” But a heavily
revised version of my arguments and explanation is now in the monograph We Look
for the Resurrection of the Dead, under review.
37. Borrowed and modified from Christopher M. Brown, Aquinas and the Ship of
Theseus (London: Continuum, 2005), 119.
38. Christina Van Dyke, “Human Identity, Immanent Causal Relations, and the
Principle of Non-Repeatability: Thomas Aquinas on the Bodily Resurrection,” Reli-
gious Studies 43, no. 4 (December 2007): 373–394.
39. Another broad way of understanding “physicalism” is to couch it in terms of a
thesis such that human beings can be explained exhaustively by physics. I take it that
the way I’ve expressed physicalism is consistent with this.
40. Trenton Merricks, “There Are No Criteria of Identity Over Time,” Nous 32, no.
1 (March 1998): 106–124; Trenton Merricks, “How to Live Forever without Saving
Your Soul,” in Soul, Body, and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Per-
sons, ed. Kevin Corcoran (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001).
41. For his account of human beings and personal identity, see Peter van Inwagen,
Material Beings (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), particularly 85ff. For
his statements concerning the inability to provide an account for the identity of a life,
see, pages 157–158.
42. Thanks to Joshua Farris and Jordan Wessling for providing helpful comments
on earlier drafts of this chapter.
Beale, G. K. The Temple and the Church’s Mission. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 2004.
Corcoran, Kevin, ed. Soul, Body, and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human
Persons. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.
Dainton, Barry. Time and Space. 2nd ed. Durham, UK: Acumen, 2010.
Farris, Joshua R. The Soul of Theological Anthropology. London, UK: Routledge,
2017.
Middleton, J. Richard. A New Heaven and a New Earth. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2014.
Mugg, Joshua, and James T. Turner, Jr. “Why a Bodily Resurrection? The Bodily
Resurrection and the Mind/Body Relation.” Journal of Analytic Theology 5 (2017):
121–144.
Toner, Patrick. “Hylemorphic Animalism.” Philosophical Studies 155, no. 1 (2011):
65–81.
Turner, James T., Jr. “On the Horns of a Dilemma: Bodily Resurrection or Disem-
bodied Paradise?” International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 75, no. 5
(2015): 406–421.
Walton, John H. The Lost World of Genesis One. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic,
2009.
Wright, N. T. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003.
Chapter 15
Dismantling Bodily Resurrection

Objections to Mind-Body Dualism
Brandon Rickabaugh
“My only comfort in life and death is that I belong, body and soul, to my
faithful Savior Jesus Christ.”1 This confession is grounded in two historic and
prevalent Christian beliefs:2
Bodily Resurrection: We, human persons, will exist in the life to come with a
glorified and incorruptible resurrected body.
Mind-Body Dualism: We, human persons, are not identical to any purely physi-
cal thing, but are or have an embodied immaterial soul.
Although most Christians throughout the history of the church have main-
tained both beliefs, some Christian materialists argue that these two doctrines
are in conflict. Some argue that bodily resurrection is trivialized by substance
dualism (here after, dualism), that dualism makes expiations of why bodily
resurrection is truly difficult, or that dualism should be rejected as bodily
resurrection is better accounted for by Christian physicalism. Let’s call such
arguments resurrection objections.
These criticisms are somewhat understandable. Dualism is often stated
with little to no mention of the body. Regarding the core commitments of
dualism, Dean Zimmerman observes,
(a) they believe that, for every person who thinks or has experiences, there is a
thing—a soul or spiritual substance—that lacks many of the physical properties
the body shares with unthinking material objects; and (b) they believe that this
extra thing is essential to the person, and in one way or another responsible for
the person’s mental life.3
The emphasis is on the soul, with only passing mention of the body. This too
is somewhat understandable as arguments for dualism are often framed in
295
296 Brandon Rickabaugh
debate with physicalism. Christian dualists agree that embodiment is a crucial

aspect of human persons. Alvin Plantinga observes that
on the traditional Christian view, God has designed human beings to have bod-
ies; they function properly only if embodied; and of course, Christians look
forward to the resurrection of the body. My body is crucial to my well-being
and I can flourish only if embodied.4
Likewise, for Dallas Willard, “the body lies at the center of the spiritual life.”5
and is “an essential part of who we are and no redemption that omits it is full
redemption.”6
Nevertheless, contemporary dualist accounts of embodiment or bodily
resurrection are scarce. Kevin Corcoran observes:
Yet it is plausible to believe that it is precisely that doctrine that needs to be

addressed by Christian Dualists, for none of the ecumenical creeds of the church
confesses belief in a doctrine of soul survival. The Christian doctrine has been
understood as the doctrine of bodily resurrection.7
It is worth briefly explaining that Corcoran’s interpretation of the creeds is

problematic. The creed makers, like most at the time, assumed dualism of one
kind or another.8 With no need to defend dualism, their goal was to emphasize
the uniquely Christian claim of bodily resurrection. There is a fundamental
assumption of dualism evident in the Apollinarian controversy surround-
ing Chalcedon and neo-Chalcedonian Christology. The central debate was
whether or not the Son needed a soul in addition to him or his mind.9 Chalce-
don explicitly rejects the Apollinarian and Arian “God with a body” Christol-
ogy, yet affirms that the Son has a rational soul, meaning Christ assumed a
soul and a body. The Cappadocian fathers reject Apolinarius’s teaching and
Arian Christology, yet affirm that the Logos must assume a soul and a body.
Further, the Cappadocians continually argue that the Logos’s relationship to
his human nature is just like the relationship between the body and the soul.
Moreover, the rejection of Origenism at the Fifth Ecumenical Council is tell-
ing. On one version of Origenism, possibly affirmed by Gregory of Nyssa,
a soul lives on without a body. In response, the council sought to affirm the
body, but did not deny the soul.10 Moreover, the Fourth Council of Constanti-
nople states: “the old and new Testament teach that a man or woman has one
rational and intellectual soul, and all the fathers and doctors of the church,
who are spokesmen of God, express the same opinion.”11 Hence, Corcoran’s
use of the early creeds is misleading.12
Still, Corcoran is right about the lack of dualist work on embodiment.
Although, Corcoran, and every other Christian physicalist I am aware of,
Dismantling Bodily Resurrection Objections to Mind-Body Dualism 297
overlooks the works of Charles Taliaferro,13 Howard Robinson,14 and Richard

Swinburne.15 Still, inattention to embodiment is a weakness in contemporary
dualism.16 There are, of course, other theological objections to dualism, but
those have received substantive replies.17 While dualists18 and Christian mate-
rialists19 have raised resurrection objections against various forms of Chris-
tian materialism, Christian materialists have responded.20 The same cannot
be said of dualists.21 This chapter is intended to help move this conversation
forward.
BODILY RESURRECTION, WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
According to Lynne Rudder Baker, Christian views of the resurrection must

account for three doctrines.
EMBODIMENT: Resurrection requires some kind of bodily life after death.

IDENTITY: The very same person who exists on earth is to exist in an afterlife.
MIRACLE: Life after death, according to Christian doctrine, is a gift from
God.22
These doctrines are largely uncontroversial.23 Trenton Merricks, however,

defends a moderately controversial criterion.
BODILY IDENTITY: An individual’s resurrected body must be numerically

identical to their preresurrection body.24
Taken together, this four-part desideratum rouses the strongest resurrection

objections to dualism.
Frequently, the objection is that dualism cannot account for at least one of
the resurrection desiderata, while Christian materialism can. At other times
the stronger objection is that dualism makes explaining these criteria impos-
sible. But how so? According to Baker,
The best that metaphysics can do is to show how resurrection is metaphysically

possible. That is, any candidate for a metaphysics of resurrection must conceive
of human persons in such a way that it is metaphysically possible (even if physi-
cally impossible) that one and the same person, whose earthly body is corrupt-
ible, may also exist with a post-mortem body that is incorruptible.25
If this is the best that metaphysics can do, then resurrection objections should
attempt to show that the conjunction of dualism and bodily resurrection
is metaphysically impossible. In reply, dualists need only show that this

conjunction is metaphysically possible.
While I find Baker’s criterion undeniable, I am skeptical of BODILY
IDENTITY. Yet there is, I will argue, no reason to think that dualism is at
odds with BODILY IDENTITY. My goal is to show that not one of these
criteria provides a definitive or even serious problem for dualism, which in
turn undermines a common motivation for Christian physicalism.
RESURRECTION OBJECTIONS FROM EMBODIMENT
According to EMBODIMENT, resurrection requires a bodily afterlife. Those

in Christ will be raised by God with a physical, glorious, incorruptible, pow-
erful, and immortal body (cf. 1 Cor. 15:42–43, 53–54) like the resurrected
body of Jesus (Phil. 3:21). Paul expected this to happen not at death, but at
the advent (1 Cor. 15:20–24, 51–54; 1 Thess. 4:14–17), as part of Christ’s
renewal of all things (Phil. 3:20–21). So, how is EMBODIMENT a problem
for dualism? Merricks and Baker offer slightly different objections. Let us
take them in turn.
Merricks: EMBODIMENT is Not Necessary for Dualism

Merricks’s objection from EMBODIMENT begins with a question: “But
if dualism were true, it is hard to see why our resurrection would be a big
deal.”26 He then argues,
Now the dualist might object that a soul in Heaven without a body is somehow
mutilated or incomplete, and so the dualist might, therefore, insist that resur-
rection is a blessing. But it is hard to know just how much stress should she
put on the value of resurrection, since stress on what we gain in resurrection is
by its very nature, stress on what we lack before resurrection. Pre-resurrection
existence united with God in Heaven is not supposed to be too bad; indeed, it is
supposed to be very good.27
Merricks assumes that souls in the intermediate state are conscious. That isn’t
something dualism entails, and those who hold that souls “sleep” until the
body is resurrected easily avoid this problem. Secondly, the claim is not that
resurrection cannot be a great good given dualism. Merricks’s claim is much
weaker: given dualism, it is difficult to assess how valuable resurrection is
because embodiment is not needed to enjoy the greatest good of being united
to God. But what follows from this cannot be that embodiment is not a great
good! It does not follow from the fact that x is a great good, that x in conjunc-
tion with y is not an even greater good.
Merricks makes the further point as to what the dualist cannot argue.
And however the dualist might deal with this problem, one thing is certain: The
dualist cannot say that resurrection is necessary for eternal life . . . one cannot
maintain both that life after death occurs before resurrection and also that life
after death requires resurrection.28
This needn’t worry the dualist. First, Merricks shifts between talk of eternal
life and life after death. These notions, though, are not equivalent. For exam-
ple, if annihilationism is true, then one can have a life after death without an
eternal life. Likewise, if the doctrine of eternal hell is true, one can have an
eternal life in terms of duration, but not in terms of quality. What this means
is that eternal life is not reducible to life after death or the persistence of
identity. Once we distinguish Merricks’s conflation of these two doctrines,
his objection is less plausible.
Eternal life in the biblical sense is much more than unending postmortem
existence. Eternal life is resurrection, as N. T. Wright notes:
The meaning of “resurrection” as “life after ‘life after death’” cannot be over-
emphasized, not least because much modern writing continues to use “resurrec-
tion” as a virtual synonym for “life after death” in the popular sense.29
Eternal life is one overarching event with present and future aspects. In the
present, eternal life makes available a renewed or resurrected life, the sign
of which is to trust and be permeated by agape love.30 Death begins now, as
does life in the Spirit.31 According to Jesus, those who believe have eternal
life now.32 The future aspect of eternal life includes a distinctive kind of
survival of death which includes the righting and overcoming of sin and its
consequences, touching the body before and after death.33 This process of
glorification starts before death.34 So, eternal life refers both to duration as
well as quality of life. According to several New Testament authors, eternal
life, in terms of quality, can begin in this life. “The new life,” Wright notes,
“which will be consummated in the resurrection itself works backwards into
the present, and is already doing so in the ministry of Jesus.”35 Resurrection
is something that has become available now. Wright observes,
Resurrection in John continues to be both present and future, and we should

resist attempts to flatten this out by marginalizing the “future” emphasis of
overemphasizing the “realized eschatology.” It is, of course, true for John, as
for Paul, that “eternal life” is not simply future, but already to be enjoyed in the
present.36
What this means is that eternal life is not mere postmortem existence, but
requires resurrection, a part of which is bodily resurrection. So Merricks
is mistaken. One can maintain both that eternal life begins before bodily
resurrection and that eternal life, in the qualitative sense, requires bodily
resurrection.
Consequently, the dualist can hold that bodily resurrection is necessary for
eternal life, when we understand that an eternal kind of life is necessarily a
bodily resurrected life. Furthermore, we have no reason to think that disem-
bodiment is anything other than a natural consequence of sin, just as death is
(Rom. 6:23). Hence, a disembodied life is a soteriologically incomplete life.
It is a great good, but not the greatest good. Moreover, resurrection, the right-
ing and overcoming of sin and its consequences, demands re-embodiment. As
such, bodily resurrection is needed for the defeat of sin and death. Without it,
God’s mission of resurrection in the full sense is not fulfilled.
Baker: Disembodiment Excludes an Explanation of

EMBODIMENT
According to Baker, “Mind-body dualism would provide no obvious expla-
nation of why resurrection should be bodily (since, according to mind-body
dualism, we can exist unembodied).”37 This assumes that if a theory holds that
human persons can exist unembodied, then that theory provides no obvious
explanation for EMBODIMENT. What seems to motivate this is a reductive
theory of bodily resurrection. Like Merricks, Baker reduces bodily resur-
rection to the persistence of personal identity. Her argument assumes that if
we get an explanation of resurrection as persistence after death that does not
require EMBODIMENT, then that explanation offers no obvious explanation
of EMBODIMENT. But this assumes that bodily resurrection is reducible to
postmortem persistence. However, I have shown that is false. Consequently,
Baker’s objection from EMBODIMENT fails.
Medieval and Contemporary Arguments for EMBODIMENT

Often Christian physicalists proffer less of a criticism and more a shifting of
the burden of proof. They claim that dualists have failed to offer a reason for
EMBODIMENT. This claim is easily rejected once we recognize the exten-
sive medieval literature on why the human soul needs a body. My point here
is not to develop or defend these accounts beyond chapters 1 and 2 of this
volume.38 I simply wish to show that the burden-shifting move is illegitimate
as there are many arguments for why a soul needs a body. In turn, the burden
is on the Christian physicalist to show how these accounts fail.
Not all medieval thinkers held the same ontology of the human person,
although they uniformly rejected physicalism, arguing that thinking things
must be immaterial.39 Many adopted a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics making
use of hylomorphism, a view not obviously at odds with dualism. So, while
not every argument from the medieval era would aid dualism, at least the
following can:
1. Appetite Satisfaction and Perfect Happiness: Bonaventure, Aquinas, and

Scotus recognize that our desire for our body is so powerful that we would
not be perfectly happy without, not just any body, but our individual body.
2. Metaphysical Completeness: According to Bonaventure, the human soul
perfects the body, and is, therefore, naturally inclined to be joined to its
body. This inclination is frustrated when the soul is disembodied. There-
fore, in virtue of the fact that resurrection is fundamentally about bringing
creation into perfection, the resurrected person must be an embodied soul.
3. Metaphysical Perfection: Aquinas argues that embodiment is part of
God’s soteriological plan. Being disembodied is not a perfected state, but
a punishment for the fall. However, Christ’s passion merits the permanent
restoration to God’s original intent for human persons as embodied souls.
If that is how God made us, then that is how he will perfect us.
These are only a few of the arguments made by Bonaventure, Aquinas, and
Scotus, among others. The claim that dualists lack reasons for EMBODI-
MENT is just historically naïve.
While most of the medieval arguments appeal to our desire and inclina-
tion to have a body, they do not obviously explain why it is good that we
should have such a desire and inclination. Contemporary dualists offer such
explanations. Taliaferro argues that being an embodied person consists in
the exercise of six types of virtue: sensory, agency, constitutional, epistemic,
structural, and affective.40 Swinburne argues that having a body makes pos-
sible great goods, including the ability of free choice between good and evil
and the ability to influence others and the inanimate world.41
Gordon Barnes argues that the telos of the human soul, as created by God,
is embodiment. Consequently,
If we take this telos of a particular human soul to be constitutive of its very

identity, then its embodiment in a particular parcel of matter is also constitutive
of its identity, even if the soul and that parcel of matter are really distinct and
separable.42
Maximus the Confessor offers alternative teleological arguments for dual-

ism.43 God, argues Maximus, created us as embodied souls as an ontological
preparation for the eschatological mystery of the incarnation of Christ. Our
ontology is set up, as it were, for the incarnation. Maximus also argues that
God creates us as embodied souls so that our ontology reflects and aids us in
serving as a mediator in relation to God and his creation. Lastly, Maximus

argues that we are a microcosm reflecting elements of the entire world, in
body and soul. Without being comprised of both body and soul, human per-
sons would not truly reflect the world in its relationship to God. We would
not be a true microcosm or mediator.
Again, my point is not to defend these arguments, but to point out that
these arguments have not been addressed by those defending resurrection
objections against dualism. The common claim that dualism has no account
for EMBODIMENT is simply false. There are many accounts. Taken together
they help explain why dualists embrace EMBODIMENT.
BODILY RESURRECTION OBJECTIONS FROM IDENTITY
According to IDENTITY, the very same person who exists on earth is to exist
in the afterlife. This is far from controversial. However, Christian physicalists
argue that the conjunction of IDENTITY and dualism is somehow problem-
atic. Baker offers both a diachronic and a synchronic version of problem.
Baker’s Diachronic IDENTITY Problem

Here is Baker’s diachronic IDENTITY objection:
There is a metaphysical problem with immaterialism: in virtue of what is a

soul the same soul both before and after death? Perhaps the best answer is that
souls are individuated by having a “thisness” or haecceity. This is an intriguing
suggestion that I cannot pursue here. A haecceity view, if otherwise satisfac-
tory, may well be suitable as a metaphysics of resurrection—if it did not leave
dangling the question of why resurrection should be bodily.44
Note that the first sentence is not an objection, but merely a question. Posing
a question does not by itself produce a problem. What we need is a reason to
think that dualism cannot answer the question. Baker does not provide one.
In fact, she admits that souls could be individuated by having a “thisness”
or haecceity. However, she faults such an account as it presumes another
doctrine that is problematic for dualism: EMBODIMENT. But faulting an
account of persistence for leaving open the question of EMBODIMENT is
not an objection from IDENTITY. It certainly cannot be the case that if a
theory satisfies IDENTITY it must also satisfy EMBODIMENT unless one
assumes Christian physicalism. Baker has, by her own admission, simply
stated that even if dualism can satisfy IDENTITY, the problem of EMBODI-
MENT remains. However, as we saw in the previous section, the objection
from EMBODIMENT fails.
Baker later observes that a soul must be subject to change in virtue of the
fact that religious practice involves conversion.45 From this she argues:
Consider Augustine before and after his conversion—at t1 and t2, respectively.
In virtue of what was the soul at t1 the same soul as the soul at t2? The only
answer that I can think of is that the soul at t1 and the soul at t2 were both
Augustine’s soul. But, of course, that answer is untenable inasmuch as it pre-
supposes sameness of person over time, and sameness of person over time is
what we need a criterion of sameness of soul over time to account for. So, it
seems that the identity of a person over time cannot be the identity of a soul
over time.46
The dualist has several responses.47 First, for independent reasons, one might
deny there is such a thing as criteria of diachronic identity. Merricks defends
such a view.48 Following Lowe, one might hold that persistence is “primitive
or ungrounded, in that it can consist neither in relationships between non-
persisting things nor in the persistence of other sorts of things.”49 On such
views, Baker’s demand for criteria in virtue of which a soul at t1 is the same
soul as the soul at t2 is in principle impossible regardless of one’s ontology
of the human person.
Secondly, Baker suggests that a haecceity view might work. According
to this view, a soul has a nonqualitative property which is responsible for
its individuation and identity. I will offer another account in section 3.4.2.
There are, as it turns out, many ways to avoid Baker’s diachronic IDENTITY
objection.
BAKER’S SYNCHRONIC IDENTITY PROBLEM
Additionally, Baker offers a synchronic IDENTITY objection. Here the idea

is that without a body the individual person cannot satisfy IDENTITY. Baker
argues,
In virtue of what is there one soul or two? If souls are embodied, the bodies
individuate. There is one soul per body. But if souls are separated from bodies—
existing on their own, apart from bodies—then there is apparently no difference
between there being one soul with some thoughts and two souls with half as
many thoughts. If there is no difference between there being one soul and two,
then there are no souls. So, it seems that the concept of a soul is incoherent.50
This seems right. If the body is the only thing that can individuate the soul,
then a soul without a body cannot be individuated. What she is mistaken
about is that this objection renders the concept of a soul incoherent. The most
obvious way out of this problem is to reject the notion that a soul is individu-
ated by a body. Baker has already given the dualist a way out by admitting
that the soul could be individuated by a haecceity. Consequently, it is difficult
to see this objection as having much force.
BODILY RESURRECTION OBJECTIONS FROM MIRACLE
According to MIRACLE, life after death must be understood as a miraculous

gift from God (cf. 1 Cor. 15:38). One is hard pressed to find an objection
from miracle among contemporary Christian philosophers, although some
theologians press this objection. Baker mentions such an objection regarding
the dualism of the ancient Greeks.51
First, I am unaware of any contemporary Christian dualist who holds that
the soul is naturally immortal.52 Richard Swinburne, for example, rejects
this thesis and considers arguments to that conclusion fallacious.53 He rec-
ognizes that such a view is “out of line with the Christian emphasis on the
embodiness of men as their normal and divinely intended state.”54 Accord-
ing to Swinburne, neither philosophical nor scientific arguments support
the immortality of the soul on its own powers. He does, however, think that
Scripture and the Creeds evidence the continued existence of the soul after
death due to divine act.55 Other dualists, like Karl Popper, are skeptical of
the mind’s existence after death,56 while Robert Audi thinks it cannot be
guaranteed or ruled out.57
Secondly, objections from MIRACLE rest on a false assumption. “The
possibility of immortality,” says Reichenbach, “should not be confused with
the actuality of it.”58 Likewise, Swinburne argues, “even if the soul is simple
and separable from the body, it does not follow that it will continue to exist
after death, let alone exist forever with a mental life, with thoughts, feelings,
and sensations.”59 That a soul continues to exist after its body dies does not
mean there are no other conditions under which a soul could cease to exist.
Why not think that the death of the body would, save for God’s miraculous
intervention, result in the death of the soul? The metaphysical possibility of
disembodied existence may very well be made actual only by the miraculous
activity of God.
Finally, suppose the dualist cannot cite the continued existence of the
soul after death as a miracle. It does not follow that life after death, in
the full biblical sense of resurrection, is not a miraculous gift from God.
That one receives a glorified, incorruptible body is not a consequence of
dualism. Hence, one will receive a resurrected body only if God makes
it so. These arguments taken together undermine the objection from
MIRACLE.
BODILY RESURRECTION OBJECTIONS

FROM BODILY IDENTITY
The final resurrection objection is made in terms of numerical identity.

According to BODILY IDENTITY, an individual’s resurrected body must
be numerically identical to their preresurrection body. There are at least
two ways one could reply: reject BODILY IDENTITY or show that it is not
incompatible with dualism.
Some Christian philosophers do not believe that strict philosophical iden-
tity is taught in Scripture or required to preserve important Christian teach-
ing about resurrected persons.60 In fact, many Christian materialists reject
BODILY IDENTITY,61 as do most contemporary theologians.62 So, we may
have good reasons to reject BODILY IDENTITY. However, we needn’t
make this move to avoid Merricks’s objection. In what follows, I will simply
assume BODILY IDENTITY but argue that it is not inconsistent with and can
be accounted for by dualism.63
Merricks: No Parthood, No BODILY IDENTITY

Merricks’s objection to dualism from BODILY IDENTITY presses the fol-
lowing dilemma.
Some might suggest that my current body will be identical with whatever resur-
rection body has the same (substantial) soul as is had by my current body. But
a soul is not part of a body. And I doubt that the identity of one physical object
(such as a body) might be entirely a matter of the identity of a second object
(such as a soul) when that second object is not itself a part of the first object. In
this regard, taking a soul to be the guarantor of bodily identity is less plausible
than taking the bone from the base of the spinal cord to be that guarantor. For at
least that bone is a part of the relevant body.64
On the one hand, says Merricks, the dualist may argue that (i) if a soul is
a part of the body then perhaps the body could persist if the soul persists.
However, Merricks points out that the soul is not a part of the body, so the
body is not the only or best means of accounting for BODILY IDENTITY.65
On the other hand, the dualist may argue (ii) that a body can persist in virtue
of a soul’s persisting. However, Merricks rejects this claim by appealing to a
thesis I state as follows.
Part Identity: the identity of one physical thing, B1, at some time, t1, cannot be
identical with a physical thing, B2, at another time, t2, in virtue of some further
thing, S1’s, persisting between t1 and t2 (if S1, in our case the soul, is not a proper
part of B1 or B2).
It is unclear what physicality is doing in this principle other than ensuring

it does not entail that it is impossible for God to guarantee the identity of
anything that is not a proper part of God. Still, I have a hard time seeing how
Part Identity could be defended. Regardless, considering how the soul can
guarantee the identity of the body across time even though the soul is not a
part of the body will be enough to answer Merricks. Although it is beyond the
scope of this chapter to defend a full dualist account of bodily persistence, I
offer the following sketch as a plausible view.
Excursus: Bodily Souls, the Body as a Mode of the Soul

C. Stephen Evans and I have defended what we call the bodily soul view.66
On this view, the human person is identical to an immaterial substance: the
soul. However, the person, as embodied, is a bodily soul, where the soul is
in a sense the form of the body. As Edmund Husserl says, “the soul . . . be-
souls the Body.”67 Hence, the body is not merely another object in the world,
but the mode in which we manifest our presence in the world and exercise
our agency and relationality. “To live as a person,” says Husserl, “is to posit
oneself as a person, to find oneself in, and to bring oneself into, conscious
relations with a ‘surrounding world.’”68
I suggest this view be infused with a robust neo-Aristotelian metaphysics
of substances and modes, especially that of the late medieval Aristotelians69,
and the work of E. J. Lowe,70 J. P. Moreland,71 and others.72 Although I find
this view extremely interesting, philosophically fruitful, and underexplored, I
offer it only as a plausible view of mind-body dualism. There are other ways
a dualist could answer Merricks. I simply offer this as one possible and inter-
esting dualist model that can answer Merricks’s objection.
What is most important for my reply to Merricks is the essence of the soul
and its relation to the body and the body’s persistence. On the proposed view,
the essence of the soul is ontologically fundamental, such that facts about the
essence of the soul determine, among other things, the soul’s natural kind.
In the terms of late medieval Aristotelians, the essence of the soul is a thin
particular, which includes the essence/form, the nexus of exemplification, and
prime matter.73 On Moreland’s view, it is a bare particular, not prime matter,
that individuates the soul.74 Like Augustine,75 Aquinas,76 and Suárez,77 this
view takes from Aristotle the notion that the soul is “the cause and source
of the living body.”78 The essence of the soul contains, as a primitive unity,
powers for developing the body. The essence of the soul is both the internal
efficient cause of and teleological guide for the internal structure and devel-
opment of the body.79 That is, the essence of the soul is both the first efficient
cause of the body’s development, as well as the final cause of its functions
and structure.80 Consequently, the body is an ensouled physical structure, not
a mere physical machine or aggregate of separable parts standing in external

relations. The body is merely a physical thing but has both physical and non-
physical aspects. 81 The body is a complex structural mode of the soul.
Back to the Objection

With the previous model in mind, it is plausible, contrary to Merricks’s claim,
that facts about the soul ground facts about BODILY IDENTITY. Because
the body is a mode of the soul, fundamental facts about the body obtain in
virtue of facts about the soul.82 Without the soul, there is no body. Hence, the
body persists just in case the soul persists. Of course, one might reject the
view I’ve sketched. However, this would not undermine my reply to Mer-
ricks’s objection from BODILY IDENTITY. I have offered this bodily soul
view only as a possible model for dualism, and I remain open to other types of
mind-body dualism. However, all I need to reply to Merricks is a metaphysi-
cally possible account that can explain BODILY IDENTITY. To that end,
this bodily soul view succeeds.
Dead Souls Cannot Be Resurrected?

Merricks offers a further objection to dualism from BODILY IDENTITY:
What if we were not identical with our bodies? Then it would be hard, if not
impossible, to make sense of the idea that dead people will be resurrected.
Moreover, the importance of the doctrine that, on the Day of Resurrection,
one gets a body identical to the body one had in this life would be difficult to
explain. Indeed, I cannot think of any plausible explanation at all, much less one
that rivals the very straightforward and absolutely compelling explanation that
flows directly from the claim that each of us is identical with his or her body.83
The fact that dead people will be resurrected, says Merricks, is explained
much better if we are identical to our body, such that when our body is resur-
rected we are resurrected. But if we are not identical to our body, then we
will not be resurrected; only our body will be resurrected. So, the fact that we
are resurrected can only be explained (or, at least, is much better explained)
if we are identical to our body.84
Again, the hidden assumption is that resurrection is nothing more than
postmortem survival, which I have shown is false. In terms of God’s over-
all project of resurrection, the dualist should hold that a soul undergoes its
own kind of resurrection. In fact, on the bodily soul view sketched above,
the resurrection of the body, in terms of restoration, will include the soul,
as the body is a mode of the soul. Resurrection will include restoring the
soul-body relation. Certain deficiencies in the soul, as well as the soul’s rela-
tion to the body, will be transformed, recovered from death, and made alive.
Re-embodiment does not leave the soul unchanged. Contrary to Merricks’s
assumption, the dualist can argue that the whole person, not merely their
body, is resurrected.
Still, it is unclear what Merricks is actually arguing here. In what follows
I raise objections for various interpretations of Merricks’s argument. Perhaps
he is arguing something like the following. We must account for this fact:
it is very important that on the day of resurrection one gets the body that is
identical to their premortem body. It is very important on the view that one
is identical with one’s body because one’s premortem body is needed for one
to persist after death. Any reason the dualist gives for BODILY IDENTITY
will not be as important as the Christian physicalist’s reason. Bodily resurrec-
tion is a matter of existence given Christian materialism, but not for dualism.
Understood this way, Merricks’s argument is that the value of resurrection is
higher on physicalism than it is on dualism.85
But what follows from this argument is not that dualism is inconsistent
with or cannot account for BODILY IDENTITY. What follows is that the
materialist account has greater value. But that one account is more valuable
than another certainly does not mean that the more valuable account is the
correct or more justified account. Of course, that I exist is very important, at
least to me! However, it is not important enough. Many have this intuition
about eternal hell or Sisyphus. The value of resurrection is not merely that
I exist, but that I exist in a resurrected state where the damages of sin are
overcome. Mere existence does not get us resurrection. Resurrection requires
much more. This point seems to be lost on Patrick Lee and Robert George,
who write,
If I just were a soul, even though I had a natural orientation to union with my
body, then the nonexistence of the resurrection might be disappointing, but it is
hard to see how it would render the faith futile (as St. Paul argues). And it would
be difficult to explain why bodily resurrection would be at the center, rather
than, say, “icing on the cake,” for the central teaching about life with Christ.86
Far from “icing on the cake,” the cornerstone of resurrection is God’s

redemption of creation by restoring the conditions under which it flourishes,
including our body (Rom. 8:18–25). I see no reason why the dualist can-
not account for their continued existence as a miraculous act of God that is
partly constitutive of the resurrection. True, their sustained existence does not
require BODILY IDENTITY. However, as Merricks admits, being present
before God is a great good. This great good is missing for the Christian mate-
rialist who holds, as Merricks seems to, that resurrection requires that one go
out of existence. While the Christian materialist does not exist and can enjoy
nothing, the dualist enjoys the great good of being in the presence of God.
So, how do we evaluate which view entails that resurrection is more valu-
able? Merricks’s view works on the presumption that dualism cannot include
existence as a great good of resurrection. But this is false. Perhaps the dualist
can argue that BODILY IDENTITY is part of the conditions under which
we flourish. Some might think the medieval arguments mentioned earlier
might bolster this view. Metaphysical perfection, for example, might require
BODILY IDENTITY. Likewise, it may well be that the God-given telos of
human persons includes embodiment.
The human soul is created by God for embodiment in a particular parcel of mat-
ter . . . It is constitutive of the human soul, per se, that it is naturally directed
towards embodiment. Thus, part of what it is to be a human soul is to have
this telos. Thus . . . each and every individual human soul is naturally directed
towards embodiment in a particular parcel of matter.87
This alone gives the dualist reason to think that BODILY IDENTITY is true,
provided this teleological fact is true. Such a teleological fact can be disputed.
But that is not the point. What this shows is that dualism is not at odds with
BODILY IDENTITY, but has a possible reason for thinking it is true.
Corcoran: Reassembly and Gappy Bodies

Corcoran presses another issue, arguing that BODILY IDENTITY poses a
difficulty for both dualism and Christian materialism.88 He asks,
How can a physical object that exists in the hereafter be numerically identical
with a physical object that has either radically decayed or passed out of exis-
tence under more gruesome circumstances?89
Corcoran uses van Inwagen’s reassembly argument to show that sameness

of parts is not sufficient among the persistence conditions of bodies. Accord-
ing to van Inwagen’s argument, the reassembly of your body cannot ground
personal identity over time, because God could reassemble all the material
particles of my five-year-old body alongside all the material particles of
my 25-year-old body. But clearly, these two bodies cannot be the numeri-
cally same body. Therefore, reassembly of parts does not give us BODILY
IDENTITY.90
Perhaps this is, as Corcoran claims, a genuine problem for Christian mate-
rialism, but it needn’t be for dualism. Recall the bodily soul view sketched
above, where a body is not merely an aggregate of material parts standing in
external relations. So, God couldn’t reassemble my five-year-old body along-

side my 25-year-old body, because my body is necessarily ensouled by me.
My soul is what makes my body a body. Hence, mere reassembly of material
parts will not get you a body. You would need a single soul to ground the
nature of two bodies. But, that certainly isn’t entailed by dualism, and I see
no reason for adopting such a view.
Furthermore, suppose that a body at t1 can remain numerically identical
with a body at t3 even though at t2 that body did not exist. The dualist might
hold that the body is a mode of the soul, where a mode is a concrete particu-
lar, a specific way something is.91 A red vase has both a shape and a color,
each of which are modes, ways the vase is. Likewise, for a human body to
be a mode just is for the human body to be a way the person our soul is.
Accordingly, I needn’t be bodily. I can go from being embodied to being
disembodied.
On this view, my being embodied is a modification that I undergo. Given
this, one could adopt a type of immanent causal view that Corcoran defends,
but with one important qualification. According to Corcoran,
A human body B that exists in the future is the same as a human body A that
exists now if the temporal stages leading up to B are immanent causally con-
nected to the temporal stage of A now.92
I am not convinced that immanent causal connectivity is plausible, as it is not

sufficient for numerical identity. However, here is an interesting possibility:
a dualist could hold that BODILY IDENTITY is maintained in virtue of the
immanent causal connectivity between the soul and body through time. One
advantage of this view over Corcoran’s view is that one of the relata, the soul,
never goes out of existence. Alternatively, the dualist might hold that bodily
continuity is maintained as follows. At death, my physical body is modified
into or perhaps replaced with a nonphysical body. What I leave behind is a
corpse, while I gain a nonphysical body, which will, at the resurrection, once
again be modified to a physical body.93 So long as either of these accounts is
logically possible, and that is all I am suggesting, the dualist avoids Corco-
ran’s objection.
CONCLUSION
Given my argument in this chapter, we have some important lessons. First,

the doctrine of bodily resurrection is not reducible to problems of personal
identity. Moreover, contrary to claims from Christian physicalists, dual-
ism has substantive reasons for why a soul needs a resurrected body. These
arguments have been repeatedly ignored by Christian physicalists. Lastly,

there are currently no good bodily resurrection objections to dualism. We
may continue to confess, in spirit and truth, that “my only comfort in life and
death is that I belong, body and soul, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.”94
NOTES
1. Heidelberg Catechism, A New Translation (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian

Reformed Board of Publications, 1975), Qa1.
2. Regarding resurrection, the Heidelberg Catechism makes this more explicit,
stating that “not only will my soul be taken immediately after this life to Christ its
head, but even my flesh, raised by the power of Christ, will be reunited with my soul
and made like Christ’s glorious body” (Heidelberg Catechism, question and answer
57). Similar confessions are made in other catechisms, including The Westminster
Shorter Catechism (question and answer 37), and The Longer Catechism of The
Orthodox, Catholic, Eastern Church (question and answer 366). See also, Luther’s
Large Catechism, Q. 34; Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 32; and To Be a
Christian: An Anglican Catechism, Q. 142.
3. Dean Zimmerman, “Three Introductory Questions,” in Persons: Human and
Divine, eds. Dean Zimmerman and Peter van Inwagen (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2007), 19.
4. Alvin Plantinga, “Materialism and Christian Belief,” Persons: Human and
Divine, 99.
5. Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ
(Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2002), 159. For an excellent treatment of Willard’s
view, see, J. P. Moreland, “Tweaking Dallas Willard’s Ontology of the Human Per-
son,” Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care 8, no. 2 (2015): 187–202.
6. Willard, Renovation of the Heart, 162.
7. Kevin J. Corcoran, Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alter-
native to the Soul (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 121.
8. See, for example, N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 4th ed. (London:
Adam and Charles Black, 1968), chapters 6 and 11.
9. See for example, Frances Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the
Literature and Background, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2000),
chapter 6; Christopher Beeley, Unity of Christ: Continuity and Conflict in Patristic
Tradition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), chapters 1 and 6; and
Edward R. Hardy, ed., Christology of the Later Fathers (Louisville, KY: Westminster
John Knox Press, 1954), 124–125.
10. The council, for example, has some anathemas against it, as it affirmed that the
soul is given a physical body. See Richard Price, The Acts of the Council of Constan-
tinople of 553 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009), 278–279.
11. Fourth Council of Constantinople, canon 11.
12. I am grateful to Ryan Mullins who first drew my attention to these historical
points.
13. Charles Taliaferro, “The Virtues of Embodiment,” Philosophy 76/295 (2001):

111–125.
14. Howard Robinson, “A Dualist Account of Embodiment,” in The Case for
Dualism, eds. John R. Smythies and John Beloff (Charlottesville: University of Vir-
ginia Press, 1989), 43–58.
15. Richard Swinburne, “What is So Good about Having a Body?” in Comparative
Theology: Essays for Keith Ward, ed. Timothy Walter Bartel (London: SPC Publish-
ing, 2003), 134–142.
16. This has been noted by dualists themselves. See, for example, Keith E. Yan-
dell, “Materialism and Post-Mortem Survival,” in Knowledge and Reality: Essays in
Honor of Alvin Plantinga, eds. Thomas M. Crisp and Matthew Davidson (Leiden,
Netherlands: Springer, 2006), 262.
17. The most significant contributions are from John W. Cooper. Beyond his
chapter in this volume, see his Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropol-
ogy and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989); “The
Bible and Dualism Once Again: A Reply to Joel B. Green and Nancey Murphy,”
Philosophia Christi 9 (2007): 459–469; “The Current Body-Soul Debate: A Case
for Holistic Dualism,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 13 (2009): 32–50;
“Exaggerated Rumors of Dualism’s Demise: A Review Essay on Body, Soul and
Human Life,” Philosophia Christi 11 (2009): 453–464. See also, Brandon Ricka-
baugh, “Responding to N. T. Wright’s Rejection of the Soul,” Heythrop Journal
(forthcoming).
18. Charles Taliaferro and Stewart Goetz, “The Prospect of Christian Materialism,”
Christian Scholar’s Review 37, no. 3 (2008): 303–321, William Hasker, “Materialism
and the Resurrection: Are the Prospects Improving?” European Journal for the Phi-
losophy of Religion 3 (2011): 83–103. Dean Zimmerman has argued against Baker’s
constitution view. See Dean Zimmerman, “Rejoinder to Lynne Rudder Baker,” in
Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Religion, eds. Michael L. Peterson and
Raymond J. Vanarragon (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 338–341.
19. For example, Baker argues against animalism. See her “Death and the After-
life,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion, ed. William J. Wainwright
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 387–89. Corcoran thinks there is a problem
for both Christian materialists and dualists. See his Rethinking Human Nature, 123,
and “Dualism, Materialism, and the Problem of Postmortem Survival,” Philosophia
Christi 4, no. 2 (2002): 415–416.
20. See Trenton Merricks, “The Resurrection of the Body,” in The Oxford Hand-
book of Philosophical Theology, eds. Thomas Flint and Michael Rea (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2008), 476–490; Peter van Inwagen, “The Possibility of
Resurrection,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 9, no. 2 (1978): 114–
121; and Lynne Rudder Baker, “Materialism with a Human Face,” in Soul, Body, and
Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons, ed. Kevin Corcoran (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press): 159–180.
21. However, some dualists argue that the resurrection makes dualism more
attractive than Christian materialism. See William Hasker, “Emergentism,” Religious
Studies 18 (1982): 473–488; and Taliaferro and Goetz, “The Prospect of Christian
Materialism.”
22. Lynne Rudder Baker, “Death and the Afterlife,” in The Oxford Handbook for
the Philosophy of Religion, ed. William J. Wainwright (New York: Oxford University
Press 2007), 368; and Lynne Rudder Baker, “Persons and the Metaphysics of Resur-
rection,” Religious Studies 43 (2007): 339–340.
23. Stephen T. Davis lists these doctrines in his own words as assumptions of res-
urrection theology. See his After We Die: Theology, Philosophy, and the Question of
Life After Death (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2015), 49–50.
24. Trenton Merricks, “The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting,” in
Reason for the Hope Within, ed. Michael J. Murray (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1999), 267–271.
25. Lynne Rudder Baker, “Persons and the Metaphysics of Resurrection,” Reli-
gious Studies 43 (2007): 340.
26. Merricks, “The Resurrection of the Body,” 280.
27. Merricks, “The Resurrection of the Body,” 280–281.
29. N. T. Wright, Resurrection and the Son of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress
Press, 2003), 31.
30. Luke 10:25–37; John 13:34–35; 15:12–17; Rom. 13:9; Gal. 5:14; 1 Pet.
1:22–23; 1 Jn. 3:10–24; 4:7–12.
31. Rom. 6:1–11, 8:5–13; 2 Cor. 3:18, 4:10–12, 16–18; Eph. 2:1–6; Col. 3:1–3.
32. John 3:36; 4:14; 5:24; 6:54; Matt. 12:28.
33. Matt. 22:32; John 5:24–25; 6:54.
34. Rom. 8:16–39; 2 Cor. 4:16–18; 5:16–17; Eph. 2:4–7; Phil. 1:6; 3:10–11.
35. Wright, Resurrection and the Son of God, 440.
36. Wright, Resurrection and the Son of God, 441.
37. Lynne Rudder Baker, “Christians Should Reject Mind-Body Dualism,” in
Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Religion, eds. M. Peterson and R. Van
Arragon (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 337.
38. Further excellent treatments include Marilyn McCord Adams, “The Resurrec-
tion of the Body According to Three Medieval Aristotelians: Thomas Aquinas, John
Duns Scotus, William Ockham,” Philosophical Topics 20, no. 2 (1992): 1–33, and
“Why Bodies as Well as Souls in the Life to Come,” in The Science of Being as Being:
Metaphysical Investigations, ed. Gregory T. Doolan (Washington, DC: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2012), 264–297.
39. Robert Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1671 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2011), 324.
40. Charles Taliaferro, “The Virtues of Embodiment,” Philosophy 76 (2001):
111–125.
41. Richard Swinburne, “What’s So Good about Having a Body?” in Comparative
Theology: Essays for Keith Ward, 137.
42. Gordon Barnes, “Is Dualism Religiously and Morally Pernicious?” American
Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 78, no. 1 (2004): 103.
43. Maximus the Confessor, Epistulae 6; and Maximus the Confessor, Migne,
Patroligia, Gracea 91, 429 B–432 A. For helpful commentary, see Lars Thunberg,
Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor,
2nd ed. (Chicago: Open Court, 1995), 95–143.
44. Baker, “Persons and the Metaphysics of Resurrection,” 341.

45. Baker, “Death and the Afterlife,” 375.
47. Oddly enough, Baker recognizes that her own account of personal identity
is also circular. Although, she argues that her view offers a noncircular account of
human personal identity. See, Lynne Rudder Baker, Persons and Bodies: A Constitu-
tion View (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 132–141.
48. Trenton Merricks, “There are no Criteria for Identity Over Time,” Noûs 32
(1998): 106–124.
49. E. J. Lowe, “Substance, Identity, and Time,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society 62 (1988): 77–78. For his more recent defense of this view, see E. J. Lowe,
“The Probable Simplicity of Personal Identity,” in Personal Identity: Complex or
Simple, eds. Georg Gasser and Matthias Stefan (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2012), 137–55.
51. Baker, “Persons and the Metaphysics of Resurrection,” 9.
52. There were Christians in the past that denied MIRACLE when arguing for the
immortality of the soul on purely philosophical grounds. See, for example, George
Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, sec. 141.
53. Richard Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul, rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
54. Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul, 311.
55. Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul, 311–312.
56. See Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles, The Self and Its Brain: An Argument
for Interactionism (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1977), 556.
57. Robert Audi, “Personhood, Embodiment, and Survival Speculations on Life
after (Biological) Death,” in Paradise Understood: New Philosophical Essays about
Heaven, eds. T. Ryan Byerly and Eric J. Silverman (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2017), 204–206, 209.
58. Bruce Reichenbach, Is Man a Phoenix? A Study of Immortality (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 1978), 49.
59. Richard Swinburne, “Soul, Nature, and Immortality of the,” in Routledge
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E. Craig (London: Routledge, 1998). Retrieved July
11, 2005 from http://www.rep.routledge.co m/article/K096
60. See, for example, Steven T. Davis, Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resur-
rection (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), 94–102.
61. See, for example, Baker, Persons and Bodies, 119–124.
62. For example, Paul Fiddes says of BODILY IDENTITY, “Together with virtu-
ally all modern theologians, I do not want to take this over-materialistic view of resur-
rection” (The Promised End: Eschatology in Theology and Literature [Oxford, UK:
Blackwell, 2000], 80).
63. For an alternative dualist defense of BODILY IDENTITY or something very
close, see, Davis After We Die, 52–59.
64. Trenton Merricks, “The Resurrection of the Body,” in The Oxford Handbook
of Philosophical Theology, 479.
65. Most dualists agree that the soul is not a part of the body. Swinburne, for
example, holds that the body is a contingent part of the person while the soul is the
essential part (Swinburne, “The True Theory of Personal Identity,” 120).
66. C. Stephen Evans and Brandon Rickabaugh, “What Does it Mean to Be a
Bodily Soul?” Philosophia Christi 17, no. 2 (2005): 315–330.
67. Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phe-
nomenological Philosophy, Second Book: Studies in the Phenomenological Constitu-
tion, trans. Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic
Publishers, 1993), 185.
68. Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenologi-
cal Philosophy, 193.
69. See Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1671, 549, 558, 560–565; and Den-
nis Des Chene, Life’s Form: Late Aristotelian Conceptions of the Soul (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2000), 67–113; 191–199.
70. E. J. Lowe, Subjects of Experience (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1996), 14–51; and “Non-Cartesian Mind-Body Dualism,” in After Physicalism, ed.
Benedikt Paul Göcke (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), 48–71.
71. See J. P. Moreland, “Tweaking Dallas Willard’s Ontology of the Human
Person,” 187–202; and “In Defense of a Thomistic-Like Dualism,” in The Blackwell
Companion to Mind-body Dualism, eds. Jonathan Loose, Angus Menuge, and J. P.
Moreland (Oxford: Blackwell, forthcoming).
72. See, for example, A. G. A. Balz, Cartesian Studies (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1951), 279–323; Stephen Voss, “Understanding Eternal Life,” Faith
and Philosophy 9, no. 1 (1992): 3–22; Gordon Barnes, “Is Dualism Religiously and
Morally Pernicious?” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 78, no. 1 (2004):
99–106; and Gordon Barnes, “Should Property-Dualists Be Substance-Hylomor-
phists?” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 75 (2002):
285–299. This account also shares similarities to the view of Bolzano. See Bernard
Bolzano, Athanasia; oder Gründe für die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (Sulzbach: J. G.
v. Seidleschen Buchhandlung, 1838), 55–56, 101, 283–84.
73. Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes 1274–167, 99–114.
74. See J. P. Moreland, “Theories of Individuation: A Reconsideration of Bare
Particulars,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79 (1998): 251–263.
75. Augustine, On Freedom of the Will, II, XVI.41; The Trinity, IV, I.3; Confes-
sions, II, 6.
76. See, for example, Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, I, Q75; and Thomas
Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Spiritual Creatures, trans. Mary C. Fitzpatrick and
John J. Wellmuth (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1949), IV.ad 9.
77. Francisco Suárez, On the Formal Cause of Substance: Metaphysical Disputa-
tions XV, trans. John Kronen and Jeremiah Reedy (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette Uni-
78. Aristotle, De Anima, 415b.9 (cf. 412a22, 412a27–28).
79. See Pasnau, 549, 558 560–565.
80. For more on this as it relates to contemporary biology, see, Thomas J. Kaiser,
“Is DNA the Soul?” The Aquinas Review 20 (2015): 90–92.
81. See Lowe, Subjects of Experience, chapter 2; and J. P. Moreland, “In Defense
of a Thomistic-Like Dualism.”
82. This does not preclude, of course, that facts about the body ground certain facts
about the soul. For example, neurological facts likely ground certain developmental
facts about the soul.
84. This objection is also briefly raised by Patrick Lee and Robert P. George in,
Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
85. Lee and George offer a similar argument in their Body Self Dualism in Con-
temporary Ethics and Politics, 74–75.
86. Lee and George, Body Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics, 75.
87. Gordon Barnes, “Is Dualism Religiously and Morally Pernicious?” American
Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 78, no. 1 (2004): 103.
88. Corcoran, Rethinking Human Nature, 123–133; and “Dualism, Materialism,
and the Problem of Postmortem Survival,” Philosophia Christi 4, no. 2 (2002):
415–416.
90. Peter van Inwagen, “Dualism and Materialism: Jerusalem and Athens?” Faith
& Philosophy 12, no. 4 (1995): 485–486.
91. See, E. J. Lowe, The Possibility of Metaphysics: Substance, Identity, and Time
93. For a recent defense of the possibility of a nonphysical body, see, Robert Audi,
“Personhood, Embodiment, and Survival Speculations on Life after (Biological)
Death”; and Peter Drum, “On the Resurrection of the Body: Discussions with Mer-
ricks,” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 3, no. 2 (2011): 451–454.
94. I am grateful to the following individuals for helpful comments on an earlier
draft of this chapter: Richard Swinburne, Alexander Pruss, J. P. Moreland, Trent
Dougherty, Philip Swenson, Lori Morrow, and Ryan Mullins.
Adams, Marilyn McCord. “Why Bodies as Well as Souls in the Life to Come.” In
The Science of Being as Being: Metaphysical Investigations, edited by Gregory T.
Doolan. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012.
Davis, Stephen T. “Physicalism and Resurrection.” In Soul, Body and Survival:
Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons, edited by Kevin Corcoran. Ithaca,
———. “Resurrection.” In The Cambridge Companion to Christian Philosophical
Theology, edited by Charles Taliaferro and Chad Meister. Cambridge, UK: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2010.
Evans, Stephen C., and Brandon Rickabaugh. “What Does It Mean to Be a Bodily
Soul? Philosophia Christi 17, no. 2 (2015): 315–330.
Gundry, Robert H. “Addendum: A Biblical & Philosophical-Scientific Conversation

with Christian Nonreductive Physicalists.” In The Old is Better: New Testament
Essays in Support of Traditional Interpretations. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Sie-
beck, 2005.
Hasker, William. “Materialism and the Resurrection: Are there Prospects for Improv-
ing?” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1, no. 3 (2012): 83–103.
Moreland, J. P. The Soul: How We Know It’s Real and Why It Matters. Chicago:
Moody Press, 2014.
———. “Tweaking Dallas Willard’s Ontology of the Human Person.” Journal of
Spiritual Formation & Soul Care 8, no. 2 (2015): 187–202.
Robinson, Howard. “A Dualist Account of Embodiment.” In The Case for Dualism,
edited by John R. Smythies and John Beloff. Charlottesville: University of Virginia
Press, 1989.
Swinburne, Richard. Mind, Brain, and Free Will. Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press, 2013.
———. “What’s So Good About Having a Body?” In Comparative Theology: Essays
for Keith Ward, edited by Timothy Walter Bartel. London: SPCK, 2003.
Taliaferro, Charles. “The Virtues of Embodiment.” Philosophy 76, no. 1 (2001):
111–125.
Chapter 16
“Absent from the Body . . .

Present with the Lord”
Is the Intermediate State
Fatal to Physicalism?
John W. Cooper
This chapter considers the biblical doctrine of the intermediate state—the
existence of human persons (also referred to as souls, spirits, egos, minds,
selves, subjects, agents) between death and bodily resurrection—as the most
compelling reason for Christians to affirm substance dualism of some sort as
the true metaphysics of the human constitution. There are good philosophical
reasons for inferring the metaphysical distinctness of soul and body or spirit
and matter, many of them articulated in this volume. But the intermediate
state entails that persons and their bodies are not merely distinct but separa-
ble. Disembodied existence undercuts not only physicalism and materialism
but all philosophical anthropologies which regard the body as metaphysically
necessary for personal existence, including emergent monism, psychophysi-
cal (property dualist, dual aspect) monism, multidimensional monism, and
ontological holism. I refer to those anthropologies which essentialize embodi-
ment collectively as bodily monism.1
The eschatological narrative of disembodied existence between death and
final resurrection is not derived from experience or philosophical reflection.
It is revealed in the Bible—implied by the Hebrew Scriptures and explicitly
affirmed in the New Testament (argued later). Whatever our views on the
right relation between reason and revelation, most Christian scholars seek
to hold philosophical positions which at least are consistent with Scripture,
if not shaped by it. Thus, if the Bible teaches the intermediate state in addi-
tion to the unity of body and soul in this life and the life to come, then we
should embrace some sort of holistic or integral dualism and eschew bodily
monism as Christian anthropology. Virtually all Christian churches and tradi-
tions since New Testament times have understood Scripture this way. Many
Christian academics continue to affirm historic anthropology, as is apparent
from this volume.2
319
320 John W. Cooper
Since the mid-twentieth century, however, bodily monism of various kinds

has gained a significant following among Christian academics. Christian
monists appeal to biblical-theological, practical, philosophical, and scientific
reasons. They claim that the Christian tradition has misunderstood the anthro-
pology of Scripture and interprets it according to Platonic dualism rather than
Hebraic monism. As a consequence, they charge, human life and Christian
practice have been distorted by various dualisms: spirit against body, intellect
over feelings, inward-focused ego isolated from other people and the world,
and spiritualized religion disengaged from the rest of life. Bodily monists
also embrace trends in philosophy and science which regard our personal,
mental, and spiritual capacities as products of our brains and organisms, and
hold that human nature has evolved entirely by (theistic) evolution from the
physical energy of the Big Bang. They see no need for a spiritual ingredient
or supernatural agency to explain the soul or the image of God. Christian
monists believe that Scripture, philosophy, and science converge to corrobo-
rate their perspective.3
The intermediate state is a serious challenge to bodily monists precisely
because it involves disembodied existence. Monists typically ignore it,
marginalize it as an incidental doctrine, or reject it as a misunderstanding
of Scripture.4 They especially are critical of the notion of an immortal soul.
Instead of an intermediate state and final resurrection, most monists believe
that human individuals cease to exist (except in the mind of God) at death and
are reactualized by bodily resurrection. Some propose an immediate bodily
resurrection, thereby avoiding a period of disembodiment. A few defend a
bodily monistic account of personal existence in the intermediate state.
The main part of this chapter elaborates and defends the intermediate state
as a clear and important teaching of Scripture and historic Christianity. The
second part challenges monistic eschatologies as incompatible with Scripture
and/or sound philosophy.5
APOLOGETICS FOR THE INTERMEDIATE

STATE AND DISEMBODIED EXISTENCE
Physicalists and other bodily monists challenge the intermediate state at two
points: they deny that it is an enduring and important doctrine of Scripture
and the church, and they charge that it posits the objectionable notion of an
immortal soul. I address these topics in order.
The Intermediate State in Scripture

In spite of ongoing debates, leading biblical scholars still conclude that
Scripture envisions personal existence—largely undescribed—between death
“Absent from the Body . . . Present with the Lord” 321
and future bodily resurrection.6 Monists are correct that scholarship since
the nineteenth century turned against overly Platonic, Cartesian, or idealistic
views of the soul. But scholars have not shown that biblical anthropology is
monistic—that humans consist of just one substance or basic ingredient—
certainly not material or physical. The general consensus is that the Hebrew
Bible reflects ancient near-eastern animism. Philosophical reflection on ani-
mistic anthropology extrapolates integral dualism—the holistic, existential
unity of distinct spiritual and earthly ingredients (cf. Gen. 2:7). After physical
death, identifiable individuals, such as Samuel, David, Hezekiah, and Job,
continue to subsist in Sheol—the realm of the dead—even if their personal
capacities are greatly reduced. The Psalmist anticipates “dwelling in the
house of the Lord forever” (Ps. 23), and latter prophets envision the shades
in Sheol returning to bodily life in the world on the great day of the Lord (Is.
26:19; Ezek. 37). Continuing existence of individuals with kinship groups
beyond death is part of the narrative of God’s people in the Hebrew Bible.
Intertestamental Judaism includes diverse perspectives on eschatology and
anthropology, including a mortal soul with no afterlife, which the Sadducees
held. The Pharisees and rabbis embraced an integral or holistic dualism,
believing that souls or spirits exist after death until bodily resurrection. Jew-
ish believers influenced by Plato, such as Philo, affirmed the immortality of
the soul and regarded resurrection as spiritual elevation to a heavenly mode
of existence. All three of these perspectives appear in the background of the
New Testament.
But the New Testament clearly and consistently presents an anthropology
and eschatology similar to that of the Pharisees, reoriented by the proclama-
tion that Jesus is the Messiah and that human life as created and spoiled
by evil and death has been transformed into everlasting life in union with
Christ by the Holy Spirit. Bodily resurrection is the central hope because it
completes the salvation of human nature that God created. But continuing
personal existence until the resurrection is an integral phase of salvation his-
tory even though it is less prominent in the New Testament. Jesus himself
assures the penitent thief on the cross, “today you will be with me in Para-
dise” (Luke 23:43). Jesus was in Paradise between his death on Friday and
his resurrection on Sunday morning. The thief was with Jesus instead of in
the place of punishment that he anticipated. The unity of the human nature
they share was sundered by death, but they continued to exist in fellowship.
Christ’s path through death to resurrection is paradigmatic for all Christians
(1 Cor. 15:20, 23).
The apostle Paul, educated as a Pharisee, shared their doctrine of (human)
spirits and bodily resurrection (Acts 23:6–8). It is clear in his letters: the
resurrection of our earthly bodies at the return of Christ in 1 Thessalonians
4:13ff and 1 Corinthians 15, as well as personal fellowship with the Lord
between death and resurrection in 2 Corinthians 5:6–9 (“away from the
322 John W. Cooper
body and at home with the Lord,” v. 8) and Philippians 1:21–24 (“live in the
flesh . . . or depart and be with Christ”). Paul does not use the terms soul or
spirit in contrast to the body and flesh but uses personal pronouns: I live in the
body or am with Christ—a person-body/flesh distinction. Pauline and New
Testament anthropology and eschatology are expressed in diverse ways in the
original languages, but they are completely consistent: persons in their core
identity continue to exist between death and bodily resurrection.
This same sequence is evident in the apocalyptic texts of Revelation, which
envision both lamenting martyrs and the church triumphant praising God
before the final resurrection. Hebrews 12:22–24 likewise refers to “the spirits
of the righteous made perfect” presently dwelling with God, Christ, and the
angels in the heavenly Jerusalem, anticipating its eschatological descent to
the new earth.
In sum, the biblical canon as a whole consistently moves toward a doctrine
of the last things which includes an intermediate state, bodily resurrection,
and cosmic renewal.7 Modern theologians and biblical scholars rightly have
criticized Platonic, idealistic, and otherworldly elements in some strands of
traditional anthropology and eschatology, but they have not shown that the
basic narrative, including the intermediate state, is a misinterpretation of
Scripture or an incidental teaching that can be disregarded. They certainly
have not established that bodily monism and nonexistence until resurrection
are the correct readings of Scripture.
The Biblical-Theological Rationale for the Intermediate State

Monist scholars are convinced that the intermediate state and disembodied
existence are foreign to Scripture and incompatible with the biblical view
of God, humanity, and our relationship. Their rhetoric sometimes sounds as
though obviously God himself is a monist and that any dualism—even the
most integral and holistic—is perversely antithetical to his nature, will, and
design for humanity.
But in Scripture quite the opposite is true. Temporary disembodied exis-
tence is entirely consistent with, if not essential to, the biblical narrative of
God’s enacting his eternal intention through Christ to redeem and glorify his
people and the whole creation (e.g., Eph. 1:3–10; Col. 1:15–20). Although
penultimate to the resurrection, the intermediate state is a crucial, integral
phase of the history of salvation. From before creation, God wills that we
humans constantly remain in the loving, reciprocal, covenantal relation-
ship with him in which and for which he created us, until it is fully realized
eschatologically. The image of God in Genesis 1 is three-dimensional. It
involves our relationship with God, with other people, and with nature—all
three intrinsic to human nature. Sin is treason against God, which leads to
physical and spiritual death—alienation from God, from others, and nature—
and potentially to complete annihilation and nonexistence. But in spite of sin
and death, God loves the world, remains faithful to his original intention, and
sends Jesus Christ to assume our human nature and save the world. Accord-
ingly, God providentially upholds humans in all three dimensions during this
life and restores all three after the resurrection. When we die, he temporarily
sustains his people in two of the three relationships in which we were created:
our relationship with him and with other humans (the saints in heaven), but
not our bodily relationship with the earth. Faithful to his original intention,
he preserves us continuously between death and resurrection and into end-
less future, which begins with the resurrection of our bodies at the return of
Christ. The New Testament indicates that God also perpetuates the existence
of those who reject him and whose destiny is not in his kingdom. In anthro-
pological terms, God preserves humans as conscious and responsive beings,
even though our physical organisms cease functioning and disintegrate. In
this way we do suffer death as the consequence of our sin and fallen nature.
In the intermediate state God graciously prevents death from completely
obliterating the permanent relationship he ordained for us before he created
the world. God’s grace is stronger than sin and his love is stronger than death,
even in the realm of the dead. In biblical theology, therefore, the intermediate
state is an essential chapter in the history of salvation—integral to the Gospel.
In support of this perspective, consider two biblical themes which often are
not related to the intermediate state: everlasting life in John and the invincible
love of God in Romans 8.
In John’s Gospel, the human life which was created by God the Logos
(John 1:4) can be supernaturally transformed into everlasting life by regen-
eration of the Holy Spirit (John 3:6, 15–16). Those who are “born from
above” by the spirit possess everlasting life already now. The crucial point is
that transitory earthly life becomes everlasting life during our lives, not after
death. And if life in Christ is truly everlasting, then it endures forever. An
existential gap is logically impossible. Life which begins, lasts a few years,
ceases to exist for millennia, and then begins again at the end of the world
is not everlasting. Understanding the relation of life and everlasting life in
John’s Gospel also illuminates Jesus’s teaching at the death of Lazarus. Jesus
assures Mary that Lazarus will rise again. Mary expresses her belief in the
resurrection “on the last day.” Then Jesus proclaims: “I am the resurrection
and the life. Those who believe in me even though they die, will live, and
everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25–26). The
only way to make coherent sense of Jesus’s words is to recognize that he
is speaking both of earthly life and everlasting life. He is saying that even
though we die physically, those who believe in him will not die spiritually.
They already have everlasting life, which implies that they will not cease
324 John W. Cooper
to exist between physical death and bodily resurrection.8 We might wonder

what Lazarus experienced while he was dead, but there is no doubt that he
continued to exist. The same assurance is meant for all who have everlasting
life in Christ.
Romans 8 proclaims the role of the Holy Spirit in implementing the cosmic
power of the Gospel—the assurance of salvation, the power of prayer, the
renewal of creation, and finally the certainty that God will bring his chosen
people to ultimate salvation through all the tribulations of life in this world.
The chapter climaxes with the assurance that nothing can separate us from
God: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38). What does it mean that “death cannot
separate us from the love of God in Christ”? It cannot mean that when we
die, we cease to exist but God will resurrect us someday. True, it is possible
for us humans to love a pet who has died and no longer exists. But in the
context of Paul’s theology and the rest of Scripture, Romans 8 cannot mean
that—for two reasons. First, the love of God is interpersonal and reciprocal:
he loves us, and we love him in return. In Scripture, love is covenantal—like
marriage, the parent-child bond, and deep friendship (Buber calls it an I-Thou
relationship). Loving the memory of someone nonexistent is a weak parody
of the love that Paul has in mind. Second, the love of God is “in Christ,” and
union with Christ is an ontological status which, like everlasting life in John,
begins already in our current lives to impart all the benefits of salvation,
including everlasting life, the renewed image of God (2 Cor. 5:17), the new
nature which already now participates in what is eternal (2 Cor. 4:16–18)
and heavenly (Eph. 2:6), and eventually the immortal resurrection body. It
is extremely difficult to reconcile Paul’s doctrine of union with Christ with
personal nonexistence between death and resurrection.
In sum, the intermediate state is an integral part of the biblical-theological
narrative of God’s salvation of creation, and it is an essential part of the per-
sonal history of each of God’s children. Ignoring or denying it conflicts with
the central message of Scripture.
The Intermediate State in the History of Christianity

Some monists suggest that the intermediate state was not an early, widely
held doctrine but hovered in the background until Calvin made an issue of
it.9 But this notion is demonstrably false.10 Wolfson’s masterful response to
Cullman’s famous Immortality or Resurrection documents that virtually all
the church fathers both affirmed the soul’s survival of physical death and
insisted on bodily resurrection.11 Those who adapted Plato’s view of the
soul for this purpose followed Scripture by rejecting Plato’s view that the
soul is essentially immortal, perfect, and capable of knowing ultimate truth.
Bynam’s The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity confirms the
endurance and ubiquity of the intermediate state and resurrection eschatol-
ogy.12 It is detailed in Aquinas’s “Treatise on the Resurrection” in the Summa
Theologica Supplement and in Dante’s graphic depiction of purgatory, hell,
and heaven in the Divine Comedy. It was a daily concern of ordinary people,
constantly reminding them of their mortality. It obviously was not an obscure
and marginal theme. It has remained alive to the present in the doctrinal
standards and liturgies of almost all branches of Christianity in spite of dif-
ferences on particular issues, such as purgatory and whether souls sleep or
are active.13 The first major deviation was the idealist eschatology of modern
theology following Kant and Schleiermacher in the nineteenth century, which
ironically veered back toward Platonism. Bodily monism first was asserted by
Hobbes in the seventeenth century but did not gain traction until scientific-
naturalistic monism became acceptable to mainline theology in the twentieth
century. Bodily monism cannot seriously claim to represent the Christian
tradition or the contemporary church—especially not in Latin America, Asia,
and Africa, where belief in the souls of the dead is ubiquitous.
Are “Immortal” Souls an Unbiblical Notion? Mere mention of the interme-
diate state triggers a barrage of monist complaints that it posits an “immortal
soul,” which they take as proof that dualism is antithetical to biblical anthro-
pology. The intermediate state is alleged to deny the reality of death because
souls do not cease to exist.14 The notion of a disembodied soul is condemned
as Platonic idealism or Gnostic spirituality. It nurtures delusions of self-
sufficiency and autonomy because immortal souls do not need God.15 It might
even usurp a divine attribute, because only God is immortal. In addition,
monists claim that belief in separable souls generates all sorts of dichotomies
and dualisms—spirit versus body, intellect versus emotions, inner self versus
others and the world, and religion isolated from the rest of life—dualisms
which fracture our humanity and distort the Christian life.16 Fortunately, these
caricatures and false charges can be dealt with in short order.
First, the monists’ stipulation that death must result in total annihilation
of body and soul is arbitrary and begs the question of the monism-dualism
debate. A less questionable definition of mortality is cessation of organic
life. By that standard, holistic dualists clearly affirm that humans die. We
are unities of body and soul, not souls incidentally attached to bodies other
than ourselves. As such we undergo biological death, even though as core
persons we continue. In fact we suffer death because the constitutional unity
of body and soul is dichotomized—torn apart. Death truncates our existence,
is metaphysically destructive, and often traumatic. Thus, persons or souls do
not avoid death because they continue to exist, as monists falsely allege.
326 John W. Cooper
If immortality simply means perpetual existence, then the intermediate

state does imply that persons or souls are immortal. But this fact in no way
attributes metaphysical self-sufficiency as an intrinsic or essential property
of souls. Christians confess that only God is immortal in this sense—having
the essential attribute of aseity, self-existence, intrinsic necessity, and utter
independence of anything other than himself for existence. Plato attributed
aseity to souls, holding that they are eternal and uncreated like the ideal
forms in the intelligible world which they contemplate. However, since the
earliest church fathers, Christian thinkers emphatically rejected this notion of
immortality and asserted instead that the human soul receives its nature and
existence from God and cannot exist without God’s constant providence.17
To my knowledge, no Christian theologian has ever held that the human soul
possesses aseity.
If immortal means having a nature which can endure forever, then most
classical and some current dualists affirm the soul’s immortality. In classi-
cal metaphysics, souls are regarded as immaterial and simple—basic unitary
wholes rather than composed of form and matter or immaterial stuff. On
this view, souls do not naturally decompose because they are not composed,
whereas bodies are composed of matter, and thus they can decompose. How-
ever, Christians who affirm this kind of immortality also hold that the soul
receives its created nature from God, who could have made it otherwise, and
also that immortal souls cannot exist an instant without God sustaining them.
Thus, the Christian doctrine of the soul’s immortality is essentially different
than Plato’s theory.
This concept of the God-given immortality of the soul fits well with other
biblical doctrines. One is the image of God. If God is eternal and immortal
spirit, then it is not surprising that the human spirit which images God is ever-
lasting, immortal, and capable of perpetual bodily life. Another doctrine is
human destiny. Because God from the beginning intends humans for everlast-
ing life, it makes sense that he created us with intrinsic immortality. In fact, it
is hard to see why an all-wise, omnipotent, and provident Creator would not
design something to fulfill its purpose, especially foreknowing sin and death.
These reasons for affirming immortality are revealed in Scripture, however,
not philosophical inferences from the nature of the soul. Most Christian
thinkers since Descartes realize that the soul’s simplicity and distinctness
from the body do not prove its immortality.
Intrinsic immortality is not a necessary implication of the intermediate
state. In fact many current Christian dualists do not affirm it. Instead they
hold that because God created humans as integral body-soul unities, soul and
body are interdependent and therefore neither is naturally capable of exis-
tence without the other. Modern psychology and brain science corroborate
this position. Disembodied persons in the intermediate state are sustained
entirely by the supernatural power of God in spite of their natural dependence

on their bodies. But these dualists do affirm the immortality of the soul in the
sense that it does not cease to exist.
A final issue is whether an immortal soul and the intermediate state imply
or promote the functional dichotomies and existential dualisms that monists
allege: soul versus body, intellect versus emotions, inner self versus others
and the natural world, and spiritualistic religion divorced from the rest of
secular life. The answer is No.
Christian anthropology—traditional and current—is quite different than
Platonic, Gnostic, or caricatured Cartesian dualism, and otherworldly spiri-
tuality in that it emphasizes the holistic integration of soul and body and
their multiple functions and relations. Most dualists emphasize the correla-
tion of thinking, willing, and feeling, and some offer intricate analyses of
the reciprocal effects of the passions, the intellect, and the will during this
life.18 Of course, they also acknowledge that the disembodied soul has altered
capacities and limitations. The point is that there is no connection between
the soul’s surviving death and a tendency toward intellectualism or emotional
disengagement.
Does the intermediate state implicitly spiritualize the image of God and
consequently secularize life? In classical Christian anthropology, the image
of God is seated in the soul because God is spirit and does not have a body.
But the image also permeates the body because the soul permeates the body,
and thus the body also images God as humans engage each other and the nat-
ural world. Because the entire human being images God, a person’s religious
or spiritual orientation toward God fills and directs one’s entire life and is not
limited to its transcendent supernatural dimension.19 Otherworldly spirituality
and religion isolated from life are impossible for biblical holistic dualism. All
of life is religious. Religious neutrality or secularism in any aspect of life is
impossible.
Furthermore, it is a false dichotomy to pit a substantial view of the image
of God against relational or functional views, as many monists do.20 Both
historic Christian anthropology and sound metaphysics affirm the correla-
tivity of substance, functions, and relations: substances function and relate;
(human) beings are not sets of functions or bundles of relations. Thus func-
tional and relational ontologies are incomplete. Worse, they are deceptive
because they actually are substantial ontologies: they assume bodily monism
as the metaphysical nature of the human beings whose functions and relations
image God.
In sum, integral Christian dualism neither entails nor inclines toward
any of the pernicious dichotomies alleged by monists even though some
Christians (dualists and monists alike) live by spiritualistic, reductionistic,
or unintegrated versions of the faith. In fact dualists—Abraham Kuyper and
328 John W. Cooper
John Paul II among them—often have promoted comprehensive and integral

visions of Christian faith and practice for this life and the life to come.
I conclude that none of the common criticisms and caricatures of the
immortality of the soul raised by monists are valid, given how the doctrine
as it is actually explained by thoughtful dualists. In fact it is difficult to take
many of the charges seriously. Although not all the views of immortality
held by traditional Christian anthropology can be conclusively derived from
Scripture, all are consistent with the biblical view of human nature. If immor-
tality merely means that God faithfully and sovereignly sustains people in
existence, then it is a biblical doctrine.
Philosophical Speculations about the Nature of the

Intermediate State
The supernatural and metaphysical processes by which God accomplishes
this astounding feat are a mystery. Disembodied existence seems contrary to
and impossible given our holistic, integral constitution as body-soul unities.
Perhaps the intermediate state is a supernatural miracle beyond explanation
by science and philosophy. But it is not impossible for a God whose power
transcends as well as creates, sustains, and is immanent (omnipresent) in the
natural order. God can sustain disembodied souls in existence just as easily
as he can sustain detached heads.
When Christian believers follow Scripture in speaking about absence from
the body and presence with the Lord, we are not using philosophical terms
or offering metaphysical explanations. We are using ordinary language about
our earthly existence as psychophysical unities to refer to a mode of existence
that is difficult to understand or imagine in nonbodily terms. Like parables do,
we use earthly language to express heavenly realities. Our language for the
afterlife, similar to our language for God, is analogical—figurative yet refer-
entially realistic. We can make true inferences about our general condition
even without clear and distinct concepts. For example, if we ourselves actu-
ally fellowship with Christ and the blessed dead between death and the resur-
rection of our bodies, then we are not identical with our bodies or absolutely
dependent on them for existence, experience, and action even though God cre-
ated us as bodily beings. Body-soul or body-person dualism is logically and
metaphysically necessary, even if we rely on ordinary language and do not
have metaphysical definitions and explanations of bodies, souls, and persons.
Given these epistemic limitations and possibilities, it is possible to specu-
late about bodiliness during the intermediate state. In Scripture, we are bodily
beings. Even the dead appear in bodily form. Samuel returns from Sheol
wearing a robe (1 Sam. 28:13–14), as do the martyrs in Revelation 6, and the
disciple’s mistook the resurrected Jesus for a ghost (Lk. 24:36–37). When I
think of my deceased mother, I imagine her in bodily form, especially her

face. Although Scripture teaches that we are with the Lord “apart from” our
earthly bodies, it is possible that interim embodiment is real and not merely
an imaginary projection of earthly life.
One possibility is that God temporarily joins our souls to bodies which
consist of the matter or elemental stuff of the place of the dead. This model
accommodates both Augustinian-Cartesian substance dualism and Thomistic
hylemorphism. The latter regards the soul not as a distinct substance but as
the subsistent form of the body, which it actualizes from matter.21 Another
Thomistic hypothesis is that interim bodiliness is the real but temporar-
ily inoperative power of the soul to form a body—the animal aspect of the
essence rational animal—which is evident to other souls in the intermediate
state and to living humans as a ghost. A final scenario for interim embodi-
ment (considered later) is presented by material constitutionists, who hold
that persons are constituted by their material bodies but not identical with
them. It is possible that at death God causes one’s body to divide into two
bodies so that one body continues to constitute the person in the intermediate
state and the other disintegrates. All these hypotheses are speculative because
Scripture does not clearly affirm interim embodiment even though it depicts
the dead in bodily form.
Speculation is also possible about the location and duration of interim
existence. Paul was “caught up to the third heaven . . . to Paradise” (2 Cor.
15:2–4), which is the location of faithful spirits awaiting final resurrection
in eschatology of the Pharisees. This heaven is not a distant place in the
universe, but a transcosmic dimension sustained by God with the conditions
necessary for interim existence—beyond our earthly understanding.
The period between death and resurrection is indexed to cosmic time but
not an extension of it. Scripture consistently correlates the final resurrection
with the second coming of Christ at the end of cosmic history (which rules
out an immediate resurrection). But the dead in the intermediate state tran-
scend earth time. Their duration and succession is not measured by cosmic
motion. Neither are they in eternity. Only God is eternal. The intermediate
state is a mode of duration distinct from cosmic time and eternity which many
medieval theologians termed the aevum, aeviternity, or sempiternity, elabo-
rating Augustine and Boethius.22 It is the duration of nonphysical creatures
who have a beginning but no end (that is, who are everlasting): angels and
human souls.
What Difference Does It Make?

Monists who believe humans do not exist between death and resurrection find
little of importance in the intermediate state and see no great loss in denying
330 John W. Cooper
it. At best they regard it as a comforting fiction for individuals who cannot
face temporary extinction. Monists try to brighten the picture by noting that
it is not possible to experience one’s own nonexistence. From the first-person
point of view, they say, death is like falling into dreamless sleep and waking
again in what seems like an instant, no matter how much time has passed. We
need not fret about ourselves or our deceased loved ones, because we will all
immediately experience resurrection together. Nothing we hope for is lost.
This scenario is subjectivistic, however, focused entirely on experience. In
reality, it entails a number of significant losses from biblical eschatology—
the culmination of God’s plan for creating and redeeming his human family,
outlined earlier.
First, if God were to let us pass out of existence, it would mean that sin and
death temporarily defeat his precreational intention that humanity be a family
in everlasting fellowship with one another and with him. Even if ontological
annihilation were the just and natural consequence of sin, the God of John
3:16 has chosen to limit its effects to physical death and to sustain human-
ity in spite of it. The incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ
graciously assume, atone for, and transform death sufficiently to allow for
an intermediate state consistent with God’s justice. Annihilation is unneces-
sarily avoidable. Faithful Israelites were “gathered to their fathers” when
they died in anticipation of national renewal when God restores Jerusalem
(Isa. 65:17ff.). New Testament believers expect to join those who have died
in the Lord and await resurrection at his return (1 Thess. 3:13–18). From Gen-
esis 1 to Revelation 22, the people of God never cease to exist. Temporary
extinction would diminish the achievement of God in creating, redeeming,
and perfecting humanity.
Nonexistence would also ontologically separate individuals from the
human community. Monists sometimes caricature dualism’s substantial soul
as an isolated “essence” or self-absorbed monad for which relationships are
incidental to existence and identity. Instead they promote “relational ontol-
ogy” and “narrative identity” as constitutive of personal existence and iden-
tity.23 But if there are no people of God in the intermediate state, then it is
monists who posit an existential-ontological gap in every individual’s contin-
uous participation in the human community, not to mention their relation to
God and their very identity (explained later). Historic Christian anthropology
affirms that self-identical individuals never cease to be in dynamic, growing
relationships with other humans and God.
Furthermore, if there is no intermediate state, then there are no humans in
heaven praising God, as envisioned in the book of Revelation. The church’s
ancient hymn, Te Deum (“We praise you, O God”) envisions the apostles,
prophets, saints, and martyrs along with the angels and heavenly hosts cease-
lessly singing “holy, holy, holy” to the Lord God of Hosts. This hymn also
reflects Hebrew 12:22–24, which lists “the spirits of righteous men made
perfect” with God, Christ, and the angels in the heavenly Jerusalem. But all
of this is pious fiction if there is no intermediate state. Eliminating the inter-
mediate state would drastically reduce the praise that God receives from his
people, the church.
Finally, denying the intermediate state is incompatible with creedal Chris-
tology and the doctrine of the incarnation. The Nicene and Athanasian Creeds
assert that Jesus Christ is truly and fully God and truly and fully human.
The Athanasian Creed concurs and adds that human nature subsists of “a
reasonable soul and human flesh.”24 The Council of Chalcedon (451) further
declares that Jesus’s divine and human natures are “without confusion, with-
out change, without division, and without separation.”25 According to bodily
monism, however, humans entirely cease to exist at physical death unless
there is immediate resurrection.26 But if Jesus’s human nature was nonexis-
tent between his death and resurrection, then it was separated from his divine
nature. (He also did not actually “descend into hell,” the realm of death.) His
resurrection reactualized his human nature and reunited it with his divinity.
Easter was a reincarnation of God the Son. According to classical orthodoxy,
Jesus’s human nature was dichotomized, but his human soul was not sepa-
rated from his divinity. Creedal Christology is not an insignificant issue.
In sum, denying the intermediate state makes a huge doctrinal and practical
difference to the Christian faith. In addition to disturbing the vast majority
of Christians who believe it, denying it implicitly diminishes the effects of
salvation, breaches God’s love and faithfulness to his people, reduces their
praise of God, separates individuals from the human community, and con-
flicts with creedal Christology. The cost of bodily monism is high.
EVALUATION OF BODILY MONIST ESCHATOLOGIES
Bodily monists have proposed three alternative eschatologies. The most

widely held is nonexistence between death and resurrection. A second is
immediate resurrection—a new body in another dimension the instant that the
earthly body dies. Finally, there is a monist account of the intermediate state
and final resurrection narrative involving an intermediate body. Here follow
brief summaries and evaluations.27
Nonexistence until Resurrection

The most widely held monist eschatology is temporary nonbeing between
death and resurrection. Persons do not actually exist, but they will be reactu-
alized when their bodies are resurrected. According to Polkinghorne, the soul
332 John W. Cooper
is “the form, or immensely complex information-bearing pattern, of the body.

That form is dissolved at death. . . . God will remember and reconstitute the
pattern that is a human being, in an act of resurrection taking place beyond
present history.”28
One fatal flaw of this scenario is its denial of the biblical doctrine of the
intermediate state. Although Scripture does not reveal much about it, and
our attempts to imagine it are speculative, there is little room for doubt that
the biblical authors affirm it and intend their readers to believe it. Christian
anthropology at least ought not to contradict it.
A second flaw which undermines this account is a tenuous view of personal
identity. It seems axiomatic that persons are necessarily self-identical, not
accidentally or contingently so. It is absolutely impossible that there be two
of me or that I could become someone else even if my personality and body
changed radically. An adequate anthropology ought to account for the logical
necessity of personal self-identity.
For dualism, the soul is the locus of self-identity. It endures continuously
as the self-same substantial or subsistent entity throughout life, during the
intermediate state, and after the resurrection of the body. It remains numeri-
cally identical even if one’s personality or body changes radically, or one
loses awareness of self-identity, or is chronically misidentified by other
people, or is completely unconscious. It cannot fail to be self-identical.
But the nonexistence until resurrection eschatology leaves personal
identity contingent and dubious. Physicalism and all other kinds of bodily
monism must ground personal identity in the body, which does remain the
self-same living entity during life. To account for the identity of earthly and
resurrected persons, however, monists must explain the numerical identity of
the earthly body with the resurrection body in spite of the gap in their exis-
tence. Perhaps the resurrection body is reconstructed from a sufficient amount
of matter from the earthly body.
Identical matter is not a secure basis for the identity of human bodies
because the material composition of organisms changes over time, and the
same matter can sequentially constitute different organisms. Thus, most
bodily monists avoid locating the identity of the earthly and resurrection
bodies (and persons) in shared matter. Instead most hold that identity consists
in the uniqueness of one’s bodily and personal characteristics—a personal
essence or Polkinghorne’s “information-bearing pattern.”29 At the resurrec-
tion, God will recreate each bodily person with his or her unique spiritual,
personal, and physical characteristics, sanctified and perfected. Each person
will have a sense of self-identity and be recognized by others as the very same
person who lived on earth.
But this explanation involves an inadequate notion of personal identity.
Logically and metaphysically, multiple replication is possible. Even though
God would not create multiple instances of John Cooper on resurrection day,
hypothetically an evil genius could. Any number of persons instantiating the
unique Cooper essence are metaphysically possible, and each would have an
equally legitimate claim to being Cooper. The issue is not whether God would
do such a thing but the nature of personal identity, which is contingent on there
being only one claimant. Even then, it is indeterminable whether the earthly
and resurrected Coopers are numerically identical or different but exactly
similar persons. This is a far weaker view of personal identity than the absolute
identity which common sense and dualism affirm. Theologically, it seems odd
for God to give such flimsy identity to humans destined for everlasting life,
while granting organisms substantial self-identity as long as they endure.30
In sum, bodily monism’s extinction-recreation eschatology contradicts
biblical eschatology and has a philosophically inferior account of personal
identity. It does not qualify as a Christian philosophical anthropology.
Immediate Resurrection
Some bodily monists postulate immediate resurrection to avoid disembodi-
ment and the dualism it entails.31 At the instant of death, God resurrects us
and thus our personal existence continues without a gap, like switching an
operating system from one computer to another without an interruption in the
program’s functioning.
One major problem with immediate resurrection is inconsistency with
Scripture, which teaches that the resurrection is a general event correlated
with the return of Christ and not an individual event for each person at death.
In addition, immediate resurrection implicitly posits two different bodies with
no continuity, which contradicts the biblical doctrine that the resurrection
body is the earthly body transformed (1 Cor. 15:42ff). Immediate resurrec-
tion further implies that the new heaven and earth, the dwelling of resurrected
people, already exists. These are serious inconsistencies with the narrative of
biblical eschatology.
Philosophically, immediate resurrection founders on personal identity in its
own way. Bodily monism posits that persons are generated by and dependent
on their organisms. If identity is substantial, that is, an intrinsic property of
an entity, then immediate resurrection implies that there are two different
persons because there are two different bodies. One could solve this problem
by claiming that the very same person instantaneously switches bodies. But
that solution implies dualism—one self-identical person separates from one
body and unites with another. Alternatively, if identity merely consists in
the earthly and resurrected person having the identical set of properties, then
immediate resurrection commits to the same dubious account of identity as
the extinction-recreation eschatology.
334 John W. Cooper
For these biblical and philosophical reasons, immediate resurrection does

not enable bodily monism to qualify as a sound Christian anthropology.
A Bodily Monist Account of the Intermediate State and

Resurrection
Although almost all bodily monists endorse either temporary nonexistence
until resurrection or immediate resurrection, a monist account of the interme-
diate state is available.32 At death, God causes a person’s body to divide by a
process analogous to organic budding or nuclear fission. One body continues
to constitute the person and the other becomes his corpse. The continuity of
the bodily person could explain an immediate final resurrection. But it also
allows for intermediate existence after which God transforms the intermedi-
ate bodily person into the resurrected bodily person. Personal continuity and
identity seem assured by the continuity and identity of the body. This is a
monist account of the intermediate state.
Thus it conforms to the biblical narrative of the afterlife. Although Scrip-
ture states that we are “absent from the body” and refers to the dead as souls
or spirits, it also depicts the dead in bodily form, as noted above. The idea of
postmortem bodily persons can explain absence from the earthly body and
continuing bodily form. So this account is consistent with Scripture.
It has been challenged philosophically, however. If one motive of bodily
monism is to articulate and defend Christian belief in terms of current science
and philosophy, there is nothing in this eschatology that science or philoso-
phy would take seriously. Bodies that bud or fission at death are imaginative
metaphors for a supernatural miracle.
More directly, this eschatology has its own problems with personal iden-
tity. If God causes the body to bud or divide, are both bodies identical with
the original? Is what grows from a bud identical with the organism that bud-
ded? Is a clone identical with its parent? Are both halves of a cell that divides
identical with the parent cell? If not, then by analogy any person generated
by a postmortem body is a different person than the one who lived and died.
If the answer is unclear or doubtful, then this scenario is no better than the
others regarding personal identity. It is likewise vulnerable to multiple repli-
cation. An evil genius could keep both bodies alive and generating persons,
or produce multiple bodily persons from the original, each with identically
strong claims to being the predeceased person, which is impossible. At best,
personal identity is contingent on there being only one postmortem bodily
person.
Perhaps personal identity is not an essential property of persons; perhaps it
is contingent on other things, or evidence, or wholly on the will of God. If so,
then this account of the intermediate state and final resurrection allows bodily
monism to qualify as a Christian philosophical anthropology. But conced-

ing a strong view of personal identity is a high cost for Christians, both for
doctrinal and pastoral issues about the life to come, and also for a philosophy
of personal identity that is as clear and sound as for the identity of physical
objects and living things.
CONCLUSION
The Bible teaches that persons exist without their bodies during the interme-
diate state, which is an integral phase of God’s plan of redemption. Because
no anthropology that is inconsistent with Scripture can be regarded as Chris-
tian (or true), any anthropology endorsed by Christians must allow for the
separation of existing persons or souls from their bodies between death and
the general resurrection. Bodily monism, which includes materialism and
physicalism, either precludes this possibility or cannot provide an adequate
philosophical account of it, in particular the identity of earthly persons with
resurrected persons. Thus bodily monism is either defeated or seriously
undermined as a Christian philosophical anthropology. And theologically,
it is hard to understand why the God who creates, redeems, and perfects his
human image-bearers for everlasting fellowship in spite of sin and death
would choose bodily monism instead of holistic dualism as the metaphysics
most conducive to his project.
NOTES
1. Prominent representatives include the following. For nonreductive physical-

ism, see Nancey Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2006); for material constitution, see Kevin Corcoran,
Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alternative to the Soul (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006); for emergent monism, see Philip Clayton, Mind
and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004); for psychophysical monism, see John Polkinghorne, Science and Theology:
An Introduction (London: SPCK, and Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), chap-
ter 3; for multidimensional monism, see Velli-Matti Karkainen, “‘Multidimensional
Monism’: A Constructive Theological Proposal for the Nature of Human Nature,” in
Neuroscience and the Soul: The Human Person in Philosophy, Science, and Theol-
ogy, eds. Thomas Crisp, Steven Porter, and Gregg Ten Elshof (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans Publishing, 2016); for an endorsement of ontological monism in spite of
affirming the intermediate state in Scripture, see N. T. Wright, “Mind, Spirit, Soul and
Body: All for One and One for All. Reflections on Paul’s Anthropology in his Com-
plex Contexts,” presented at the Society of Christian Philosophers Regional Meeting,
Fordham University (March 18, 2011). Available online at (www.ntwrightpage.com/
336 John W. Cooper
Wright_SCP_MindSpritiSoulBody.htm). Joel Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life:

The Nature of Humanity in the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 46,
is open to any view in which embodiment is essential for but nonreductive of persons.
2. Stephen Yates, Between Death and Resurrection: A Critical Response to
Recent Catholic Debate Concerning the Intermediate State (New York: Bloomsbury
Academic, 2017) is a recent example. I thank Joshua Farris for bringing it to my
attention.
3. Joel Green summarizes these arguments in “The Bible, the Natural Sciences,
and the Human Person,” in Body, Soul, and Human Life, 1–34.
4. For example, Trenton Merricks ignores it in “How to Live Forever without Sav-
ing Your Soul: Physicalism and Immortality,” in Soul, Body, and Survival: Essays on
the Metaphysics of Human Persons, ed. Kevin Corcoran (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 2001); Murphy marginalizes it as “not . . . central to Christian teaching” in
“Human Nature: Historical, Scientific, and Religious Issues,” in Whatever Happened
to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature, eds. Warren Brown,
Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Malony (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), 19;
Green argues that it is a flawed reading of Scripture in Body, Soul, and Human Life
and “Eschatology and the Nature of Humans: A Reconsideration of Pertinent Biblical
Evidence,” Science and Christian Belief, 14, no. 1 (April 2002): 33–50.
5. An important anthology of various positions is Soul, Body, and Survival, and
Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive our Death?, ed. Georg Gas-
ser (Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2010).
6. Most recent and comprehensive is N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son
of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003).
7. This is Wright’s conclusion, in The Resurrection of the Son of God, after exam-
ining ancient near-eastern views, the Old Testament, Second Temple Judaism, and the
New Testament.
8. Wright comments on John 11 in Resurrection of the Son of God: “the believer
now possesses, already, a divinely given immortal life which will survive death and
be re-embodied in the final resurrection” (444).
9. Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?, 16. Calvin wrote against Ana-
baptist belief in soul-sleep, but the intermediate state was integral to Catholic doctrine
before the Reformation and to Catholics and Protestants alike thereafter.
10. Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro, A Brief History of the Soul (Oxford, UK:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) is a clear summary of the philosophical debates and most of
the theological issues addressed in this chapter. I have benefited from it.
11. Harry Wolfson, “Immortality and Resurrection in the Philosophy of the Church
Fathers,” in Immortality and Resurrection, ed. Krister Stendahl (New York: Macmil-
lan, 1965), 54–96. Wolfson challenged Oscar Cullman’s famous lecture, “Immortal-
ity of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead,” also in Immortality and Resurrection.
Cullman is the source of much confusion because his title casts immortality and
resurrection as exclusive alternatives although he actually affirms an unconscious soul
between death and resurrection.
12. Carolyn Walker Bynam, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity,
200–1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).
13. Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994), exposition of Articles 11 and 12 of

the Apostles’ Creed; website of The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Our
Faith: “Death: The Threshold to Everlasting Life” (http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/
ourfaith7076), accessed July 2017; The Heidelberg Catechism, Question/Answers 1
and 57 on the unity of body and soul in life, their separation at death, and their reunion
at the resurrection.
14. Bruce Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1983), 52–54.
15. Wright, “Mind, Spirit, Soul and Body,” charges that dualism’s immortal soul
is residual Platonism, conducive to otherworldly spiritualization, and “the ontological
equivalent of works-righteousness in its old-fashioned sense: something we possess
which enables us to establish a claim on God, in this case a claim to ‘survive’.” These
charges caricature most historic Christian theology.
16. For example, Warren Brown and Brad Strawn, The Physical Nature of Chris-
tian Life: Neuroscience, Psychology and the Church (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press), chapters 1 and 2.
17. Wolfson, “Immortality and Resurrection in the Church Fathers.”
18. Aquinas is an astute observer of the multiple mutual influences of the intellect,
the will, and the various affections, passions, and appetites. He is not a crude intel-
lectualist. Peter King, “Aquinas on the Passions,” Aquinas’ Moral Theory (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1999), 101–32.
19. A Reformed elaboration of this view is Herman Bavinck, “The Whole Person
as the Image of God,” Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 554–62.
20. For example, Joel Green, “Why the Imago Dei Should Not Be Identified
with the Soul,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology,
ed. Joshua Farris and Charles Taliaferro (Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2015),
179–90.
21. Brian Leftow, “Souls Dipped in Dust,” in Soul, Body, and Survival, 120–38, is
a clear account of Aquinas’ anthropology.
22. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I.Q.10, a.5.
23. Joel Green makes this argument repeatedly in Body, Soul, and Human Life,
chapters 2, 4, and 5.
24. Jesus Christ is “perfectus homo: ex anima rationali et humana carne subsistens.”
25. Henry Bettenson, Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1947), 73.
26. Glenn Andrew Peoples, “The Mortal God: Materialism and Christology,” Ash-
gate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, 331–43, affirms this position.
27. I have benefited from J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, “Personal
Identity and Life after Death,” Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), chapter 14; and Stewart Goetz and
Charles Taliaferro, A Brief History of the Soul, chapter 4, which summarizes theories
of personal identity in modern philosophy.
28. John Polkinghorne, “Human Destiny,” in Science and Theology, 115–16. Oth-
ers who endorse this view are Nancey Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies,
338 John W. Cooper
132–42; Joel Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life, 178–80; Trenton Merricks, “How
to Live Forever without Saving Your Soul,” in Soul, Body, and Survival, 183–200, and
Velli-Matti Karkainen, “Multidimensional Monism,” in Neuroscience and the Soul,
221–22.
29. Notice that monists, not dualists, are guilty of reducing souls or persons to
“essences.”
30. Organisms are self-identical because they are enduring structural wholes, not
because their material components remain the same.
31. John Hick, Death and Eternal Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox
Press, 1994), chapter 15, and Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 3
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), chapter 15, sec. 3. Hick locates resurrected
persons in another dimension of creation; Pannenberg locates them in eternity.
32. Kevin Corcoran presents this possibility even though he does not endorse it.
See “Physical Persons and Postmortem Survival without Temporal Gaps,” in Soul,
Body, and Survival, 201–17; and “The Constitution View of Persons,” in In Search of
the Soul, ed. Joel Green (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005), 153–76, esp.
167–68. I have benefited from the summary and critique of this view by Jonathan
Loose, “Constitution and the Falling Elevator: The Continuing Incompatibility of
Materialism and Resurrection Belief,” Philosophia Christi, 14, no. 2 (2012): 439–49.
Bavinck, Herman. “The Whole Person as the Image of God.” In Reformed Dogmatics,
vol. 2, edited by John Bolt, translated by John Vriend, 554–62. Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Academic, 2004.
Brown, Warren, and Brad Strawn. The Physical Nature of Christian Life: Neurosci-
ence, Psychology and the Church. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
2012.
Bynam, Carolyn Walker. The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity,
200–1336. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
Clayton, Philip. Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness. Oxford,
UK: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Corcoran, Kevin. Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alternative to
the Soul. Grand Rapids, UK: Baker Academic, 2006.
———, ed. Soul, Body, and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.
Farris, Joshua, and Charles Taliaferro, eds. The Ashgate Research Companion to
Theological Anthropology. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2015.
Gasser, Georg, ed. Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive our
Death? Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010.
Green, Joel. Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible. Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008.
———. “Eschatology and the Nature of Humans: A Reconsideration of Pertinent
Biblical Evidence.” Science and Christian Belief 14, no. 1 (April 2002): 33–50.
Hick, John. Death and Eternal Life. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press,
1994.
Loose, Jonathan. “Constitution and the Falling Elevator: The Continuing Incompat-
ibility of Materialism and Resurrection Belief.” Philosophia Christi 14, no. 2
(2012): 439–49.
Murphy, Nancey. Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
———. “Human Nature: Historical, Scientific, and Religious Issues.” In Whatever
Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature,
edited by Warren Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Malony, 1–30. Min-
neapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998.
Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Systematic Theology, vol. 3. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1998.
Reichenbach, Bruce. Is Man the Phoenix? Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983.
Wright, N. T. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press,
2003.
Yates, Stephen. Between Death and Resurrection: A Critical Response to Recent
Catholic Debate Concerning the Intermediate State. New York: Bloomsbury Aca-
demic, 2017.
Chapter 17
Physicalism and Sin

Charles Taliaferro
I have argued against physicalism in print elsewhere, employing a modal and

a knowledge argument for a rather different philosophy of mind: dualism. In
this volume, I propose that substance dualism is better placed than physical-
ism to make sense of a central Christian teaching about the death of Jesus
Christ (see chapter 9 of this volume).1 In this chapter, I am more accommo-
dating to physicalism. I concede that, at first glance, there is reason to think
that a certain form of physicalism has a more elegant, holistic approach to a
Christian theology of sin, including original sin, than substance dualism. The
aim of the chapter will be to take note of the ostensible advantage of physical-
ism, but then to defend a form of dualism, integrative dualism, that provides
a framework that is as good, and in some respects, a better framework for
thinking about sin.
The kind of physicalism that can best accommodate a theology of sin is
one that is nonreductive. Forms of physicalism that either eliminate or do
not appreciate the reality of desire, love, and hate qua emotions (in addition
to, for example, brain states) are too austere to entertain the reality of sin.
So, in this chapter I assume (if only for the sake of argument) that there is a
plausible, nonreductive form of physicalism that allows for persons to have
beliefs, desires, sensations, reason, powers to act for reasons, moral aware-
ness, the capacity for self-control, the ability to be tempted, and the power
to resist temptation. I propose that insofar as physicalism can be stretched to
include these elements, plus perhaps also accommodating the awareness of
God’s commands and the possibility of life after life, then the topic of sin
need not be a threat to Christian physicalists. There are reasons for thinking
physicalism faces serious challenges with making that theological venture,
but these are not part of the concerns of this chapter. An example of a version
341
of physicalism that would, in my view, foot the bill theologically is the hyle-
morphic animalism articulated and defended by Patrick Toner.2
To appreciate the importance of Christian physicalists being able to take
a nonreductive route, consider first this overview of the state of play of phi-
losophy of mind by Jaegwon Kim, which I go on to amend to take on the
subject of sin:
For most of us, there is no need to belabor the centrality of consciousness to

our conception of ourselves as creatures with minds. But I want to point to
the ambivalent, almost paradoxical, attitude that philosophers have displayed
toward consciousness . . . Consciousness had been virtually banished from the
philosophical and scientific scene for much of the last century and conscious-
ness bashing still goes on in some quarters, with some reputable philosophers
arguing that phenomenal consciousness, or “qualia” is a fiction of bad philoso-
phy. And there are philosophers . . . who, while they recognize phenomenal con-
sciousness as something real do not believe that a complete science of human
behavior, including cognitive psychology and neuroscience, has a place for
consciousness in an explanatory/predictive theory of cognition and behavior.3
Kim (rightly) laments this derogatory, sterile approach to consciousness,

for he then goes on to note the odd juxtaposition of those who denigrate
consciousness with those philosophers who work on ethics and value theory:
Contrast this lowly status of consciousness in science and metaphysics with its
lofty standing in moral philosophy and value theory. When philosophers discuss
the nature of the intrinsic good, or what is worthy of our debate and volition for
its own sake, the most profoundly mentioned candidates are things like pleasure,
absence of pain, enjoyment, and happiness. . . . To most of us, a fulfilling life,
a life worth living, is one that is rich and full in qualitative consciousness. We
would regard life as impoverished and not fully satisfying if it never included
experiences of things like the smell of the sea in a cold morning breeze, the
lambent play of sunlight on brilliant autumn foliage, the fragrance of a field of
lavender in bloom, and the vibrant, layered soundscape projected by a string
quartet.4
Given the topic of this chapter, sin, allow me to adjust the previous
observation:
When philosophers or theologians discuss sin, the most profoundly mentioned

candidates are things like free will, responsibility, temptation, weakness of will,
failures of self-mastery, disordered desire and pleasure, vanity, (unwarranted)
anger, lust, envy, sloth, avarice, gluttony, greed, self-deception, self-destruction,
malice, malignant hatred and (harmful, dangerous) fears along a myriad of
fronts involving race, gender, age, economics, class, sexual orientation . . . . To
Physicalism and Sin 343
most of us, our concept of a sinful life, a life that is unworthy of image-bearers
of God to live, is one that is rife in qualitative consciousness. Such a life would
include experiences like feeling deep resentment about the happiness of others,
a keen desire to destroy the innocent, a desire to smell the fear in others whom
we intimidate to fulfill our narrow desires for personal satiation, the fragrance of
a building burning that we have lit on fire, the screams of our victims.
Provided that physicalists can recognize a full range of such depraved, sinful
experiences, I suggest that they are in good shape in terms of Christian theo-
logical anthropology. The one exception to note (for the record) is whether
physicalists can accommodate belief that there are evil, immaterial person-
like beings, Satan and devils, but I do not wish to defend Satan (even philo-
sophically as a possible being) in this chapter. Satan has too many advocates
these days, in my view.
In this chapter, I focus on two matters: whether physicalism or substance
dualism is better able to take seriously the embodiment of sin and grace, and
which of the two philosophies of mind is better equipped to address original
sin. I first address sin, and then original sin.
SIN FROM A PHYSICALIST AND DUALIST PERSPECTIVE
The concept of sin is not, primarily, a secular concept. It is, rather, a principle
element in the Abrahamic tradition. A sin is either an act or omission or state
of character (such as vanity) that is in violation of the will and nature of God.
Sins involve individual persons, but Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each
recognize that groups of peoples (families, tribes, cities, nations, kingdoms)
can and do sin. A paradigm case of a sin would be an act or state of character
in which the subject knowingly violates a divine command, as one finds in
the biblical narratives in which Satan tempts Jesus to sin by violating the will
of God. But one may also sin by failing to know or by neglecting God’s laws.
A reason for thinking that nonreductive physicalism may be well placed
to address sin theologically is that sins in the Abrahamic tradition usually
involve what might be called concrete embodiment, bodily acts or omis-
sions themselves, or the intention or lack of intention to commit or omit
bodily action. Matters of intention and the heart are widely recognized as a
domain of either sin or sanctity. So the mere going through the motions of
worshipping God is sacrilege because the action is not backed up by the right
motives and thoughts. Famously, Jesus claims that even a person who lusts
after someone commits adultery (Matt. 5:8), but lust and debasing worship
both refer to wrongful matters of embodiment. The sinful acts of so-called
“worship” are not actually acts of worship, but idolatry (perhaps a degrading
form of trying to appear pious in order to manipulate others) and looking at

someone lustfully is a failure to embody chastity. Because physicalists do
not distinguish between the person (soul or mind) and the body, there is no
danger of treating sin as a matter of pitting the person against the body or vice
versa. The question of which is more important, the soul or the body, does not
arise. With substance dualism, however, there can be such a question.
Such a question need not be ruinous, as I shall argue. Here is a slightly
amusing depiction of the plight of human embodiment from a dualist point of
view, in which Augustine laments the way in which, after the fall, the body
is unresponsive to the mind:
When the first man transgressed the law of God, he began to have another law
in his members which was repugnant to the law of his mind, and he felt the evil
of his own disobedience when he experienced in the disobedience of his flesh a
most righteous retribution recoiling on himself. . . . When it must come to man’s
great function of the procreation of children the members which were expressly
created for this purpose will not obey the direction of the will, but lust has to be
waited for to set these members in motion, as if it had legal right over them, and
sometimes it refuses to act when the mind wills, while often it acts against its
will! Must not this bring the blush of shame over the freedom of the human will,
that by its contempt of God, its own Commander, it has lost all proper command
for itself over its own members? Now, wherein could be found a more fitting
demonstration of the just depravation of human nature by reason of its disobedi-
ence, than in the disobedience of those parts?5
This complaint about incontinence, impotence, or lack of sexual self-mastery

may be harmless (even quaint) from the mind-body perspective, but matters
prove to be darker when taking into account extreme asceticism.
The Abrahamic traditions have included practices of asceticism in which
the soul and body have been seen in profound bifurcation with the body
taking most of the punishment. In its extreme forms, the body is subject
not just to fasting and various exercises of self-mastery, but to outright self-
laceration, flagellation, and even castration and female genital mutilation. To
be sure, physicalism is neither necessary nor sufficient to avoid these dangers.
A penitent might well engage in self-mutilation while believing that he and
the body he is mutilating are one and the same thing. Still, physicalism will
avoid the at least naïve or errant view that, for example, the body as flesh is a
natural enemy of the spirit or soul, weighing us down toward mundane, rather
than heavenly, goods. On this front, I suggest that nonreductive physicalism
has some advantage over substance dualism. Such a form of physicalism
provides an elegant, holistic picture impeding the idea that mind and body
are natural enemies.
Having made this concession, however, I believe that integrative dualism

has equal merit and some advantage over nonreductive physicalism. Accord-
ing to integrative dualism, while the person and body are metaphysically
distinct, in a healthy form of embodiment the person and body function as
one. So, while it is possible for a person to treat his body as a mere container
or a machine or a home that he inhabits, in a healthy form of embodiment, for
you to see, touch, and hear the persons you are seeing, touching, and hearing
is to interact with a unified, embodied subject. Because of its being dualistic,
integrative dualism does not attribute to the body a separate set of (poten-
tially) sinful desires, base appetitive urges, lusts, and so on. When a person is
subject to base desires, it is the integrated whole, embodied person who has
been or is sinful. While integrative dualism does not guarantee the prevention
of extreme asceticism, neither does nonreductive physicalism.
While integrative dualism and nonreductive physicalism can be evenly
matched in addressing the topic of sin, I suggest that integrative dualism
offers a more elegant understanding of the Christian antidote to sin which
is for penitent sinners to confess, forgive and be forgiven, repent, make
whatever restitution is possible for past sins, and through commitment and
renewed desires to become part of the church as understood as the Body of
Christ. The concept of the Body of Christ is the idea that baptized Christians
make up a community that is to so follow the teaching and model the life of
Jesus (the imitation of Christ), inspired by the Holy Spirit, that Christians in
the world function as Christ’s body. So, when the followers of Christ feed
the poor, visit those in prison, care for the sick and vulnerable, and so on, this
is to be understood theologically as Christ himself feeding the poor, visiting
those in prison, and so on, in which the followers of Christ and Christ him-
self form or function as an integrated whole. Integrative dualism provides an
analogous model of the relationship between Christ and the body of believers.
In 2 Corinthians 2:16, the invocation to follow “the mind of Christ” hints at
this integration of mind and body which is very different from a nonreductive
physicality account that would literally (or metaphysically) identify Christ
with (or as) the body of believers. The latter would involve the conceptual
absurdity of Christ qua Second Person of the Trinity, necessarily existing,
omnipresent, and so on, becoming metaphysically identical with contingent,
finite persons, and so on. True, the Christian physicalists can still claim that
their model of Christ’s relationship with the church is an analogy or meta-
phor (and not literal), but I suggest that integrative dualism is the more fitting
model. On integrative dualism, just as persons are not metaphysically identi-
cal with their bodies, but can function as a unified being, so Christ and the
church are not metaphysically identical, but can function as a unified being.
Let us now consider the teaching of original sin.
ORIGINAL SIN FROM A PHYSICALIST

AND DUALIST PERSPECTIVE
The belief in original sin is subject to great philosophical and theologi-

cal attention. The basic idea is that all human beings are, in some fashion,
implicated in the first sin of Adam (or Adam and Eve). The Western and
Eastern Christian traditions have shown some tension on what this implica-
tion amounts to. The Eastern Orthodox have tended to construe original sin
as the original sin of Adam and Eve and the consequence of that sin is death,
but not guilt. On this view, you and I do not inherit any of the guilt of the
Adamic sin, only its consequence, whereas the West has claimed that we, in
some sense, share in the guilt or sin of Adam and Eve. The Catechism of the
Catholic Church has this entry:
How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendents? The whole
human race is in Adam “as one body of one man” [Thomas Aquinas]. By this
“unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as in all are
implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery
that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had
received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human
nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin,
but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen
state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is,
by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice.
And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin
“contracted” and not “committed”—a state and not an act.6
It seems, initially, that nonreductive physicalists and substance dualists can

equally accommodate either the Eastern or Western views of original sin. Or,
more modestly, it seems that neither (at first glance) adds an impediment to
making a philosophical case for the coherence of believing in original sin. So, it
seems (prima facie) that either philosophy of mind could claim with Augustine
that all of humanity was (mysteriously) present in Adam.7 Either might make
use of a view adopted by some Protestants that involved a form of federalism,
according to which Adam had the authority to act on behalf of all human beings.
Kant’s appeal to a fall that takes place with a noumenal self is perhaps more
favorable to dualism, but his distinction between a noumenal and phenomenal
self is so obscure that it has few adherents. Kierkegaard’s notion that we all
recreate the Adamic sin could be worked out on either philosophy of mind, and
Richard Swinburne’s notion that original sin involves our inheriting a natural
disposition to sin seems neither helped nor aided by either philosophy of mind.
There is, however, a plausible, but controversial interpretation of the
notion of original sin that appears to give some advantage to nonreductive
physicalism. This model may be called the originalist model, according to

which the consequences of sin are transmitted as well as wrongfulness or
sinfulness, but without transmitting personal guilt. I articulate this model with
a thought experiment.
Imagine your conception involved a grave sin such as rape. As a grave
sin, let us fully acknowledge that the rape should not have occurred. If it
should not have occurred, does it follow that your conception should not
have occurred? Assuming that the rape was integral to the intercourse that
led to the pregnancy, I think it is plausible to think that, ceteris paribus, your
conception should not have occurred. There are many causes of your birth,
but given the enormity of the causal role of conception, I think it plausible
to claim that if your conception should not have occurred, your birth should
not have occurred. Given that your birth should not occur, does it follow
that, once conception has taken place, your birth should have been prevented
by abortion or infanticide? No. One might adopt a “pro-life” stance accord-
ing to which the fetus is a person and, thus, terminating fetal life would be
homicide. Or one may prohibit termination on the grounds of the fetus being
a potential person or sacred.
Even apart from these considerations, other reasons may come into play as
to why your birth should occur. Imagine that your mother was the one raped
and yet she was resolved to insure your birth and life occur. However, allow-
ing that the pregnancy even ought to be brought to term, the child reared
and to have a full life, there would still be a blight or tarnish to the life lived;
it would still forever be the case that the conception should not have taken
place. This is not a matter of personal guilt borne by the individual who came
into being due to the sinful act of the assailant. But it would involve recog-
nizing the idea that there would remain a sense in which a person’s life is in
some sense marked by (a) sin. The originalist model can then be extended by
proposing that it is highly likely (and not merely logically possible) that all or
most human beings have such a tarnished origin. While I have used rape as
the example of a primeval sin in terms of one’s origin (given the irreplaceable
biological role of conception), a host of other types of sin may be in play in
terms of one’s birth; perhaps sins of deception, manipulation, exploitation,
undue social pressures, and so on, may have played a role in one’s ancestry.
Such a hypothesis about the extent that all or most human beings have come
about (somewhere in their ancestry) through sin would be virtually impos-
sible to assess, but given the vast evidence of human sin, it is not (I suggest)
unreasonable to believe vast numbers of us are now alive due to sin.
On behalf of the originalist model, it should be noted that it works with
values that come into play in the case of restoration justice. If your ancestors
stole some property from a people and gave it to you, you might be totally
innocent personally in terms of your being made a recipient of the land (you
played no role in the original theft), but (arguably) you would not have a
right to the land. In a clear case of theft, and when the rightful owners are
still alive at the time of your receiving your bequest of the land, we might
well conclude that you share in the wrongfulness (or sinfulness) of your
ancestors insofar as you refuse to restore the land to those who had been
unjustly deprived of what is properly theirs. I raise this case not to suggest
that someone’s life might be analogous to stolen land, but to highlight a case
of when a person may be innocent personally in receiving some good, and
yet that good is tarnished.
If the above model has even remote plausibility as an interpretation of
original sin, I suggest that nonreductive physicalism may have some at least
apparent advantage insofar as physicalism, rather than dualism, is often
committed to the essentiality of origin. That is, physical objects, such as
this desk, seem to be such that it could not have originated by some other
means or be constituted by other bits of matter. If we ourselves are the
very same as our physical bodies, then our bodies are plausibly regarded as
having the origin that they have essentially. Given physicalism, you could
not have been conceived of by different parents or even by your current
parents but with a different sperm and egg. Dualists (typically) treat the
person-body relationship as contingent. As Richard Swinburne articulates
his version of person-body dualism in which the person and body are in a
contingent relationship, the whole history of the world could be the same
with one exception: he could have had a different body, yours perhaps, and
vice versa. That is, it is a metaphysical possibility that persons have lives in
different embodiments.8
Nonreductive physicalism, on the other hand, would lead us to understand
our very being or essence as tied to our sinful origin; we could not have come
into being through different ancestors. This later claim needs to be qualified
slightly: given our (presumed) actual origin through sinful ancestry, our lives
are (in some sense) tarnished by sin, but it might still be a contingent matter.
One might be well aware that one’s life was partly caused and conditioned
by sin, and yet one might seriously and rightly wish that matters had been
otherwise. One might well wish that one’s parents or, indeed, wish that the
parents of us all, Adam and Eve and their progeny, had not sinned in procreat-
ing generations of humans.9
I present the above scenario as an apparent advantage for nonreductive
physicalism, though substance dualism can use the originalist model. All
that is required is that the dualist maintains that if a key causal role in one’s
origin is sin, then one has a life that is tarnished by sin. So, even if the dualist
accepts creationism (the thesis that each person or soul is a direct creation
by God), insofar at the causal account of a person’s birth involves sin, the
subsequent life would be sinful, albeit not a matter of the person herself being
personally guilty or blameworthy.
In this chapter, I have articulated some of the advantages of nonreductive

materialism in addressing sin in general and original sin in particular. I have
also highlighted some of the merits of integrative dualism. In the end, I have
proposed that nonreductive physicalism only appears to have an advantage
over dualism, especially integrative dualism.
NOTES
1. See Consciousness and the Mind of God (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1994).
2. See Patrick Toner’s “Hylemorphic Animalism,” Philosophical Studies 155, no.
1 (2011): 65–81.
3. Jaegwon Kim, Physicalism or Something Near Enough (Princeton, NJ: Princ-
eton University Press, 2005), 10–12.
4. Kim, Physicalism or Something Near Enough, 10–12.
5. Augustine, Anti-Pelagian Writings, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series
1, vol. 5 ed. Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library,
2009), see “On Marriage and Concupiscence,” 773–774.
6. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 404. http://www.vatican.va/archive/
ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM [accessed on August 30, 2017]
7. For an overview of the major positions on original sin, see Philip Quinn, “Sin
and Original Sin,” in A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, 2nd ed., eds. Charles
Taliaferro, Paul Draper and Philip L. Quinn (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).
8. Richard Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul, rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1997). Mind, Brain, and Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
9. Whatever model of original sin is adopted, some attention would have to be
given to the traditional Roman Catholic teaching that neither Jesus nor Mary were
bearers of original sin.
Augustine. Anti-Pelagian Writings. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol.

5, edited by by Philip Schaff. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1902.
Kim, Jaegwon. Physicalism or Something Near Enough. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Taliaferro, Charles. Consciousness and the Mind of God. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
Taliaferro, Charles, Paul Draper, and Philip L. Quinn, eds. A Companion to Philoso-
phy of Religion, 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Toner, Patrick. “Hylemorphic Animalism.” Philosophical Studies 155, no. 1 (2011):
65–81.
Swinburne, Richard. The Evolution of the Soul, rev. ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1997.
———. Mind, Brain, and Free Will. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Chapter 18
Christian Materialism
and Christian Ethics
Moral Debt and an Ethic of Life
Jonathan J. Loose
Is the decision to adopt a contemporary version of Christian physicalism or

dualism neutral with respect to important Christian ethical concerns? In this
chapter, I argue it is not. The common dismissal (rather than refutation) of
dualist anthropology and the attractiveness of various versions of Christian
materialism (due to their quasinaturalistic nature and perceived harmony
with a contemporary scientific worldview) can draw attention away from the
relevance of nonphysicalist accounts to ethical concerns and their superior
ability to ground moral claims that flow from Christian theology. In this
chapter, I first challenge David Shoemaker’s claim that a “soul” criterion of
personal identity is irrelevant to practical concerns.1 Following this, I con-
sider two moral claims arising from Christian theology and Scripture: moral
accountability as the settling of a debt or record, and a robust ethic of life as
a response to the divine image. In each case, I hope to show that one or more
versions of Christian physicalism is inconsistent with (or unable sufficiently
to ground) these moral claims and to indicate that substantive, nonphysical-
ist views of human persons that entail both a simple view of personal iden-
tity and the personhood of all human beings provide a contrastingly robust
grounding for them. Thus dualist anthropology should not be dismissed, and
the claim that physicalism is an attractive alternative that is consistent with
science and neutral with respect to Christian ethics should be treated with
extreme caution.
PRACTICAL IRRELEVANCE: A PROBLEM FOR DUALISM?
In surveying the area of personal identity and ethics, David Shoemaker argues
that the Platonic-Cartesian “soul” criterion of personal identity entails an
351
epistemological problem which, while not fatal for it as a metaphysical cri-

terion of identity, renders it irrelevant to our practical concerns. Since souls
cannot be directly detected we can never know if the criterion has been met.
Shoemaker writes,
Holding people responsible, compensating them, determining the moral relation

between fetuses and the adult humans into which they develop, determining the
moral relation between early- and late-stage Alzheimer’s patients, and . . . ratio-
nally anticipating some future experience(s)—all of these practical concerns and
commitments presuppose our ability to identify and track whatever criterion of
identity turns out to ground them; they presuppose a tight connection, that is,
between the metaphysical and epistemological senses of “criterion of personal
identity.” Consequently, any theory of personal identity to which we lack this
kind of epistemological access is just going to be practically irrelevant.2
Shoemaker describes this issue as “crippling” since the strong physical and
psychological continuities that we typically rely on when making judgments
of personal identity have no necessary connection to the presence or absence
of a particular soul.3 While our practical concerns “presuppose that we can
make correct judgments about when the identity relation obtains,”4 the soul
criterion entails that our reidentification practices are “likely ungrounded and
potentially wildly mistaken.”5 The soul criterion should be rejected because
it is irrelevant to our practical concerns.
Insofar as this problem is real and crippling, it also applies to physicalist
views. For example, Peter van Inwagen is a Christian animalist who has built
his account of the metaphysical possibility of resurrection on the coherence
of the idea that God could replace a human body instantaneously and unde-
tectably.6 If this idea is coherent, then physicalists also lack the epistemo-
logical access that Shoemaker requires, since they could be deceived by the
instantaneous, undetectable replacement of living bodies with physical and
psychological duplicates at any time.
However, this problem of epistemological access need not arise given
Kwan’s “Principle of Critical Trust.”7 Application of this principle suggests
that even though strong physical and psychological continuities do not entail
the continued existence of the same person, they nevertheless offer suf-
ficiently good evidence of it that the dualist’s reidentification practices can
be considered robust. The Principle of Critical Trust includes both the claim
that certain beliefs are prima facie justified and that the best explanation of a
phenomenon is probably the simplest. Swinburne applies these points to the
question of what we might justifiably believe about personal identity given
these strong continuities. He writes,
It is a fundamental epistemological principle that (apparent) memory beliefs are

probably true (in the absence of counter-evidence), and my personal memories
Christian Materialism and Christian Ethics 353
(that is memories “from the inside” about what I did and experienced) concern
the actions and experiences of the person who had a brain strongly continuous
with my present brain.8
The reason to hold apparent memory beliefs prima facie justified is our deep
and widespread reliance on such beliefs in themselves, without further evi-
dence, for a vast proportion of what we think we know. We rely on memo-
ries for everything that we have been taught and more besides—perhaps for
everything that is not presently available to our senses. A skeptical approach
to our memory beliefs would be epistemically devastating. Of course we may
have reasons to doubt the probable truth of certain beliefs. For example, we
may take our memory beliefs about an event to be unreliable because we
have been the subject of intense suggestive questioning about them. How-
ever, in the absence of special reasons for doubt we are justified in holding
that memory beliefs are probably true, and this applies to what Swinburne
describes as “personal memories” as much as to any others. Therefore I am
prima facie justified in believing that I did and experienced those things that I
remember doing and experiencing, and which are the actions and experiences
of a person who had a brain strongly continuous with my present brain.
The Principle of Critical Trust also includes a commitment to simplic-
ity when explaining phenomena, including explaining the phenomenon of
strongly continuous memory and character sustained by the same brain.
Swinburne writes,
the simplest, and so most probable, hypothesis supported by the strong continu-
ity of memory and character sustained by the same brain is that these are mental
properties belonging to the same person. It would be less simple, and so less
probably true, to suppose that the memory and character strongly continuous
with the previous memory and character sustained by a brain having strong
continuity with the previous brain are the memory and character of a different
person.9
Given a critical trust approach, then, the presence of these various strong con-
tinuities makes it enormously probable that I continue to exist under normal
circumstances. If a person with a brain that was strongly continuous with my
present brain did and experienced things that I remember doing and experi-
encing then—in the absence of evidence to the contrary—I am justified in
believing that that person was me. Furthermore, it is simpler to hold that these
continuities are explained by the ongoing existence of a single individual
rather than to hold that there are two persons involved.
So Shoemaker’s objection to the “soul” criterion does not justify its dis-
missal. It is also at odds with a contemporary emphasis on souls as function-
ally dependent on the bodies with which they function as deeply integrated
unities such that body and soul must be considered holistically. While the
departure of the soul from the body is a logical possibility, the soul’s con-
tinued existence is not entailed by its natural properties and so would rely
on a miraculous divine gift. Dualisms are considered minimal, integrative,
holistic, or emergent and all this provides further reason to believe that physi-
cal and psychological continuity offer good evidence of the persistence of a
particular ensouled human being.10
The “soul criterion” cannot be dismissed on the grounds that it entails an
understanding of personal identity that is irrelevant to practical concerns. Nor
is this criterion less able to reveal the facts about identity in a given situation
as compared with a complex criterion based on empirical (typically physical
or psychological) continuity. In either case there are conceivable situations
in which we could be deceived or uncertain about the identities of persons.
The reasonableness of the claim that empirical continuities provide evidence
of identity establishes that the soul criterion is not at a disadvantage in this
respect.11
MORAL DEBT: A PROBLEM FOR MATERIALISM?
We can turn, then, to the practical question of moral responsibility, which

is an important consideration for theological anthropology. As Birch notes,
Scripture assumes that humans created by God are moral agents, capable of
responsibility, and able not only to be shaped by relationships with God and
others, but also to make moral decisions that affect those relationships. As
such, humans are accountable both for their identities (in the psychological
sense) and for their actions as individuals and in the community.12 The New
Testament includes a notion of moral debt that can be removed only by being
repaid or else through the answerability of the debtor to an auditor or judge.13
For example, Paul writes of a record that is created and erased:
God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses,
erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside,
nailing it to the cross. (Col. 2:13b–14)
The Fruitless Search for Complex Criteria

How should we understand human beings as morally responsible creatures;
creatures accountable for their actions?
David Shoemaker addresses the question of accountability and its rela-
tionship to personal identity.14 He holds that it is a necessary condition of
my being accountable for an action that that action be attributable to me
and notes that, typically, attributability is understood in terms of personal
identity so that, “whatever makes a past person’s actions mine is whatever
made him me.”15 So one approach to the attribution of moral responsibility

is to recognize with Locke that personal identity is a forensic term. If the
Christian physicalist can offer a plausible criterion of personal identity, then
she has offered a plausible criterion of attributability and hence a way to
ground moral responsibility. However, while neglecting the soul criterion,
Shoemaker evaluates each of the candidate criteria for attributability and
concludes that “all proposed criteria of attributability are implausible.”16
Shoemaker works through popular complex accounts of identity, offer-
ing counterexamples in which its predictions about attributability are out of
step with intuition.17 The Lockean consciousness (memory) criterion is not
necessary for attributability since we might take an action to be properly
attributable to a person who cannot remember doing it, and it is not sufficient
given the possibility of implanted memories that would cause an individual
to recall performing acts that we have no reason to believe belong to her. The
biological criterion is not necessary since we assume that the owner of an
action would leave the organism with the cerebrum if it were transplanted;
neither is it sufficient, since we intuit that a radical and instant change in psy-
chology would produce a different person despite biological continuity. The
psychological criterion is more attractive given that it involves connections
directly related to attributability such as the fulfillment of intentions in action.
Nevertheless, a case of violent physical damage that left only the weakest of
psychological links intact would seem to entail persistence despite the crite-
rion’s prediction that it does not, and a complete psychological transforma-
tion occurring sufficiently gradually would lead us to believe that there were
different persons at either end of the process despite the criterion’s contrary
verdict. Thus the psychological criterion, like the others, is neither necessary
nor sufficient for attributability. The narrative criterion18 takes identity to be a
matter of characterization rather than reidentification and so is immune from
the foregoing objections. In assuming, however, that lives are characterized
by self-told narratives, it is excessively subjective. For reasons of narrative
coherence an individual may have acts attributed to her that we intuit she
does not own, while acts with which she has become identified passively in
response to experience may be excluded or not even recognized.
This picture of the fruitless search for an adequate complex criterion of
attributability is instructive. In offering it Shoemaker both summarizes some
of the objections that have plagued the wider quest for such criteria and
expresses a strong sense of the problematic nature of the discussion as a whole.
Attributability: From Identity to Similarity

However, if these issues were not enough, Shoemaker goes on to raise a
further problem that he takes to be serious and which applies to all of the
criteria that seek to establish numerical identity. He cites Wiggins’s famous
example of physical fission.19 In physical fission a person (call him Alfred)

splits down the middle, with each fission product subsequently regrowing
the missing half of its body. Since identity is a one-to-one relation, Alfred
cannot be numerically identical with the two products of fission, and so he
has fissioned out of existence and two new individuals—call them Boris and
Charles—each physically and psychologically indistinguishable from Alfred
have begun to exist instead. If the attributability of actions has anything to
do with numerical identity, then any actions performed by Alfred cannot be
attributed to Boris or Charles, since they are numerically distinct people.
However, the intuition that is expected to arise in the face of this example
is that we believe that this cannot be right. Intuitively, we are supposed to
believe that Alfred’s actions should be attributable to Boris and Charles. They
are indistinguishable from Alfred in every way; they even recall performing
actions attributable to Alfred and expect to receive any reward or punishment
due for the things he did.
Shoemaker’s intuition accords with this expectation, and he holds that the
actions of the prefission individual are attributable to the two fission products
despite the fact that neither of them existed when those actions were planned
and performed.20 He also justifies his turn from the claim that a criterion of
identity is at the core of attributability by noting that numerical identity and
attributability are different kinds of relation. While identity is a transitive,
one-to-one relation obtaining between a single individual at different times,
attributability is an intransitive, one-to-many relation obtaining between one
act and one or more agents. Just as there are objects, such as houses or com-
panies, that may be owned by more than one person, so there are acts such as
singing a duet or winning a tug-of-war that may be, indeed must be, attributed
to multiple agents. So identity and attributability cannot be the same thing.
Having removed numerical identity from the core of attributability, Shoe-
maker seeks to sketch a way to fill the resulting gap and offer some conditions
governing the attributability of actions. If an action is to be attributable to an
agent then, when the action is performed, it must depend in some way on the
will of that agent, since the will is the central component of agency. In addi-
tion, the act of will establishes the attributability of the action to a particular
agent because it is an act in which that agent’s true self is implicated; it is an
act arising from the particular volitional “web of beliefs, judgments, attitudes,
desires and cares” that constitute the agent’s “real self.”21 If the agent’s core
self is implicated in the act of will, then that act can reasonably be taken to
be his.
The question remains of how to establish that an act is attributable to an
agent later on. Having removed numerical identity entirely from his scheme,
Shoemaker must establish a diachronic connection of a different sort. He
suggests that the relation between the agent at a later time and the agent
who performed the act is one of similarity between relevant elements of the
real selves of each of the two agents, and this relation exists in virtue of the
causal dependence of the later real self on the former. The similarity relation,
like the attributability relation, is neither one-to-one nor transitive and given
this connection Shoemaker believes he has sketched a plausible account of
attributability, and hence accountability without requiring personal identity.
Similarity and the Fading of Accountability

This account of attributability presents a dilemma for various versions of
Christian physicalism. On the one hand, a physicalist view typically requires
a satisfactory complex criterion of identity, but Shoemaker’s instructive
critique suggests the long search for such a criterion, involving numerous
proposals and counterexamples, has proved fruitless. This is further evi-
denced by the subsequent willingness to turn away from the overwhelmingly
intuitive idea of numerical identity in order to avoid the need for a complex
criterion.22 This seems indicative of a crisis, and this is the first horn of the
materialist’s dilemma: a satisfactory complex criterion of identity is required,
yet there is little reason to hope that such a criterion will be forthcoming.23
On the other hand, the Christian physicalist is not at liberty to reject
numerical identity. First, it seems highly implausible to do so. In turning from
numerical identity, Shoemaker ensures that the constraints on the attributabil-
ity of actions are much reduced. On his view, it is possible that an action be
attributed to individuals who did not even exist at the time it was performed
(individuals such as Boris and Charles). For those of us who cannot bring
ourselves to hold that an action should be attributed to someone simply in
virtue of his being highly similar to the person who performed it, it may seem
that it just has to be better to defend the importance of numerical identity,
however difficult that may be, rather than to be forced to such a conclusion;
yet the crisis for complex criteria is such that Shoemaker takes the rejection
of numerical identity to be the better path.
Second, the Christian physicalist has an important theological reason not
to turn against numerical identity in explaining the attributability of actions.
To see this, consider again Shoemaker’s account. While his understanding of
attribution at the time of the performance of the action seems unobjection-
able (i.e., attribution to the extent that the agent’s act of will is involved in
the action and the extent to which that act of will expresses the agent’s real
self), the attribution of the act at a later time is problematic. Given the rejec-
tion of numerical identity, attributability of an action to an agent at some
later time is explained in terms of a similarity relation. (Thus Alfred’s actions
are attributable to Boris and Charles, since Boris and Charles are maximally
similar to Alfred without being numerically identical to him.) However, if the
attributability of an act to an agent depends on that agent’s similarity to a pre-

vious agent then, inevitably (and as Shoemaker recognizes), accountability
will wane over time as similarity to the individual identified with the action
reduces.24 However, the waning of moral responsibility due to the passage of
time is inconsistent with the New Testament notion of a record of moral debt
and credit that accrues and then remains until it is repaid or dealt with by an
auditor or judge. The mere passage of time has no power to reduce such a
debt or to change the record. This notion of a moral record also has a depth
of ingression in Christian theology that would suggest that its absence would
be profoundly destabilizing in a range of areas.25
Thus another way out of this dilemma is required. A solution is available,
but it comes at a price. First, note that the fact that attributability is a one-to-
many relation does not entail that it must have nothing to do with the one-
to-one relation of identity. Consider an individual X who has a share in the
ownership of an act at the time it was performed (t1) because she is identified
with it in the way that Shoemaker describes. We are at liberty to say that X’s
identification with the act can be attributed to a later person Y at t2 if and only
if that person is identical to X. The act is attributable to Y because Y is iden-
tical to X who is the person to whom a share in the act was attributed at t1.
While the attribution of the act to X at t1 involves the one-to-many relation of
attributability, the identification of X at t1 with Y at t2 involves the one-to-one
relation of identity. Attribution to Y is a two-step process of determining that
the act is attributable to X (one-to-many) and that X is identical with Y (one-
to-one); we need not choose between these relations since they can coexist.
Given that the nature of attributability does not necessitate the rejection
of numerical identity, we must ask how numerical identity is to be retained
given the pressure exerted by the crisis for complex criteria. There is an alter-
native to the search for a complex criterion of numerical identity that is not
considered by Shoemaker, perhaps because it implicates the “soul” criterion
previously dismissed as irrelevant to practical concerns. Rather than denying
numerical identity, we simply deny that the correct criterion is a complex
one. A simple view of personal identity may be taken in which identity is
held to consist not in the empirical continuities that we make use of when
recognizing it, but in a “further fact.”26 That further fact may well consist in
the persistence of a simple soul that, as we have seen, we have good reason
to hold is evidenced by physical and psychological continuities associated
with a particular brain and body and is thus relevant to practical concerns.
While there is much to do to explicate this alternative, it avoids the need for
a complex criterion of identity and maintains the importance of numerical
identity, thus promising to ground a notion of moral responsibility that does
not fade over time, which is thereby consistent with the notion of a persistent
moral record and thus a New Testament notion of moral debt. Although there
are ostensibly materialist views that seek to recruit this approach,27 the simple
view is most closely and plausibly associated with immaterialism, and this
raises the prospect that in order to hold on to a theologically robust account
of moral responsibility, the Christian should leave behind a commitment to
materialism.
AN ETHIC OF LIFE: A PROBLEM FOR CONSTITUTIONALISM?
It flows from a theological commitment to creation in the imago Dei that all
human beings possess an intrinsic value and there is significant scriptural
support for the claim that vulnerable humans including the unborn, those with
disabilities, and the elderly possess this value equally. Summarizing the bibli-
cal material, Paul Copan writes: from “the womb to the end of life, human
beings possess dignity and worth.”28 The notion of dignity is tied very deeply
to the reflection of the divine image and the special (exceptional) nature of
human persons.29
While this affirmation of dignity and worth is not accompanied in Scripture
by explicit prohibitions against abortion, it is notable that such opposition
is found in both early Judaism (Philo, Josephus) and early Christianity. As
Gorman notes: “opposition to abortion, exposure, and infanticide became
an ethical boundary marker for both groups in their pagan cultures.”30 For
example, the command to love one’s neighbor leads to the claim in both the
Didache and the Gospel of Barnabas that, “Thou shalt not murder a child by
abortion” (Did. 2.2; Barn. 19:5), a point reiterated by later Church Fathers
such as Athenagoras who took the unborn to be “the object of God’s care.”31
Thus, it seems Christians should affirm an obligation to protect vulnerable
human lives including the lives of the unborn. This is an ethic of life that
may well be expressed in an opposition to abortion. For example, Corcoran
writes: “I don’t want the following fact to go unnoticed: . . . abortion, from
the moment of conception, is prima facie morally wrong.”32 How is such an
ethic to be sustained?
AN ETHIC OF LIFE AND MATERIALISM
Metaphysical theories of the human person are often assumed to have signifi-
cant moral implications, especially in relation to an ethic of life. However,
Corcoran argues that metaphysical theories—whether dualist or physicalist—
do not offer any advantage in establishing it. He writes,
I acknowledge that materialist views of human persons like CV [the Constitu-

tion View] do fail to provide metaphysical resources necessary or sufficient for
generating moral obligations or moral expectations to protect and care for the
life of a human fetus or a PVS patient. However, any metaphysical view of per-
sons, be they metaphysic dualist or materialist in nature, is impotent to provide
such resources. Other resources, metaphysically neutral with respect to dualism
and materialism, must be added to such views to generate moral obligations or
moral expectations to care for and protect human life.33
These additional resources are ethical principles. According to Corcoran, a

moral obligation such as an ethic of life will be generated by a combination
of a metaphysical theory and an ethical principle. Whatever metaphysical
theory of humans is chosen, the question is whether there is a justifiable
ethical principle that can be combined with it to generate an ethic of life. For
example, Corcoran’s own preferred Constitution View entails that human
beings lacking certain psychological capacities, including early stage fetuses
and PVS patients, do not constitute persons. The question thus becomes
whether a moral principle can be provided that justifies the protection of a
human nonperson. Corcoran offers just such a principle, suggesting that the
result is an obligation that would support a rational protest against the abor-
tion of an early term fetus:34
(1) it is prima facie morally wrong to destroy a person in potentia, and a normal
human fetus is just such a being, or (2) even if the fetus is defective and does
not qualify as a potential person, it is still a member of the human community,
and to terminate the existence of a member of the community would diminish
the kind of bond essential to the preservation and health of the community.35
Whether or not these principles turn out to be robust, Corcoran’s point is

correct in principle. A metaphysical view of human persons need not be the
determining factor in one’s position on one side or the other of an ethical
dispute, if that view can be combined with an appropriate moral principle or
principles to establish the desired ethical conclusion. Ganssle labels the view
that ethical conclusions are determined not only by metaphysical principles
but also by empirical facts and metaphysical theories the combination the-
sis.36 The combination thesis holds just so long as there are suitable ethical
principles available to supplement a metaphysical view, and so long as we
can reject any unsuitable ethical principles that entail a conclusion other than
the one we desire.
What, then, is the contribution of a metaphysical theory to a moral conclu-
sion? At least part of the answer is that a metaphysical theory establishes the
scope of application of a moral principle; it establishes to what entities that
principle will apply. It therefore has an important bearing on whether or not
a particular ethical principle will generate an obligation in a particular situa-

tion. David Shoemaker writes that there are
important ways for metaphysical facts to be relevant to moral arguments. Here

is how: in making the case for some moral conclusion, among one’s premises
will have to be both normative and descriptive assertions, and the truth of these
descriptive assertions may well depend on metaphysical considerations.37
Thus, if an ethical principle is accepted that establishes particular obligations

to persons, and if a metaphysical theory of persons is accepted that establishes
that there is a person present in a given situation, then that ethical principle
applies in that situation. For example, consider Singer’s metaphysical account
that holds that it is the members of the class of sentient beings that are worthy
of moral consideration because they can be bearers of morally significant
properties, namely being able to experience pain and pleasure. In this way,
Singer ensures that the scope of his utilitarian moral theory will extend to
both human and nonhuman animals.38 Metaphysical and ethical theories
together generate moral conclusions that are obligations to maximize plea-
sure and minimize pain within the group as a whole, even if this entails the
destruction or significant harm of a minority of individuals. Thus metaphysics
plays its role in establishing to what the ethical theory will apply. In order to
maintain human moral exceptionalism, the class of beings worthy of moral
consideration would have to be understood in a different way (e.g., consider
Baker’s efforts in this regard, discussed later).39
So Corcoran is correct to assert that metaphysics alone is typically insuf-
ficient to determine a moral conclusion, but this does not mean that metaphys-
ics has no role to play in determining moral conclusions, since—at the very
least—a metaphysical theory will establish whether a given situation contains
those things to which a particular ethical principle applies.
As the foregoing indicates, metaphysical theories entail or relate closely to
judgments of value. Ganssle makes the important point that moral obligations
are not all or nothing affairs, but are degreed, being more or less weighty.
For example, I may accept that as a driver I have an obligation to avoid caus-
ing harm to a deer that wanders onto the forest road, and so all things being
equal I will steer my car to avoid it. However, if doing so would put the life
of my passenger at risk, then the obligation to avoid causing harm to a human
person outweighs my obligation to the deer. This distinction in weight is
grounded in the relative value of the different things which I am obligated to
protect. The question, then, is not simply whether Christian physicalism can
ground an ethic of life that applies all things being equal, but whether it can
ground an ethic of life that establishes obligations to human nonpersons that
are sufficiently weighty in the face of conflicting obligations to other things.
Here we find the problem for the Christian physicalist who holds that abor-
tion of an early stage fetus is prima facie morally wrong. It seems that the
outcome of conflicting obligations to different beings will depend—probably
to a great degree—on which has the higher metaphysical status. (My obliga-
tion to the passenger in my car overrides that to the deer in the road.) Where
obligations to protect the life of a vulnerable human nonperson conflict with
obligations to protect the life of a vulnerable human person, we find that
the latter will typically be taken to carry greater weight than the former. As
Ganssle says,
We ought to note that the presumption in the abortion debate has often been
that the obligation to protect the human fetus will give way to other obligations
unless the fetus has the highest metaphysical status that is possible for it and,
therefore, the right to the highest degree of protection . . . the protection of the
fetus will go only so far if it is less than a person.40
Of course it might be objected that appeals to the metaphysical status of per-

sonhood in the abortion debate are simply mistaken. Perhaps the same intrin-
sic worth and dignity is properly ascribed to humans irrespective of whether
or not they are persons and so an obligation to a human person will not over-
ride an obligation to a human nonperson. This objection seems unavailable
to the theistic moral realist (such as the Christian physicalist) who holds that
it is in God’s nature to be perfectly good and thus God is the most valuable
being. In this case, there is an unavoidable hierarchy of value dependent upon
the extent to which a being reflects intrinsically the likeness of a nonhuman
personal God. Given a view in which there can be human nonpersons, a being
that possesses the property of personhood will be further up that hierarchy
than a being that lacks it. It does not seem reasonable to object that person-
hood is irrelevant to God’s perfectly good nature in virtue of which human
beings are possessors of the divine image and inherent value, in part because
some of the common desiderata for any account of the image of God would
seem to presuppose it.41
So it seems that Corcoran is right to object to the claim that, given a
materialist metaphysics of human persons, “we have no moral obligations or
responsibilities with respect to nonperson-constituting human organisms.”42
If there are such organisms then it is certainly possible to claim that we have
obligations toward them, since it is clear that there are viable ethical prin-
ciples that will generate such obligations. However, this is beside the point
in the face of an attempt to provide an ethic of life entailing an obligation to
vulnerable human nonpersons (fetuses or PVS patients) that will be weighty
enough sometimes to avoid being overridden by conflicting obligations to
human persons. While value can be ascribed to all human beings irrespective
of personhood, those who are persons will have a higher metaphysical status
in virtue of the degree to which they reflect the divine image and in that way
obligations toward them will be strengthened. It may seem that this compara-
tively greater value applies only ceteris paribus, but just as it is difficult to
think of circumstances in which I would risk the life of the human passenger
in my car to save the life of a deer in the road, so it may not be possible to
think of a situation in which obligations to a human nonperson would over-
ride those to a human person.
Seemingly the only sure way to provide a robust ethic of life is to ensure
that human beings are necessarily human persons. Here, a substance view of
the imago Dei underpinned by a traditional metaphysical picture of human
persons as simple souls has a great deal to offer. For example, Farris offers a
view flowing from the Western/Augustinian tradition in which the image is
taken to refer to a natural, individual substance that is a “stable thing that truly
images God.”43 On this view, we can say that an individual human being is
an image and persons, as soul-substances, are able to actualize their powers
teleologically within compound dynamic structures. On this view of persons
as substances rather than properties there are no human nonpersons, and thus
there is no image-relevant categorical distinction between humans at different
developmental stages that would ground a distinct metaphysical status. In this
way, substance dualism offers a stronger ground for an ethic of life than does
Christian physicalism.
CAN A CONSTITUTIONALIST HOLD AN ETHIC OF LIFE?
Once it is granted that, ceteris paribus, obligations to persons will trump

obligations to nonpersons in cases of conflict, the problems for an ethic of
life on the Constitution View (CV) appear deeper still. First, it may be that
on CV one is unable to hold that a prepsychological fetus is not a person after
all. This may seem encouraging, but in accepting that consequence CV itself
is undermined because it becomes clear that a first-person perspective—that
property which is held to be essential to persons—is in fact neither necessary
nor sufficient for personhood.
Baker recently has provided a detailed account of the property of a first-
person perspective. She takes it to be a complex dispositional property con-
sisting of two stages: first is the rudimentary stage, which amounts to the
capacity for conscious and intentional interaction with the environment. The
second robust stage involves the capacity for self-consciousness, that is, the
ability to conceive of oneself simply as oneself. For example, the second use
of I in the sentence, “I wonder if I will miss my train this evening” requires
the ability to think of myself as myself, simply as an individual at a future
time seeking to catch a train. One important distinction between these two
stages of the first-person perspective is that while the rudimentary stage is
possessed by both human infants and higher-order nonhuman animals, the
robust stage is possessed uniquely in the animal kingdom by humans postin-
fancy. Thus, in order to maintain human exceptionalism, Baker considers that
a person must be of a kind for which exemplification of the rudimentary stage
is normally developmentally preliminary to exemplification of the robust
stage. (The qualifier “normally” is included to address the further problem of
ensuring that mentally impaired humans are ruled in to the category of per-
sons.) The result is a conception of the property of a first-person perspective
that maintains human exceptionalism by ruling out higher animals and ruling
in infants and mentally impaired humans.
However, this is not the end of the story. As Ross Inman has observed, this
development of the idea of personhood seems to have a further problematic
consequence.44 Human personhood is found in the possession of a capacity
for a first-person perspective in its robust stage, but in order to recognize
human infants as persons we hold that a being is also a person if it is of a
kind that will normally progress to this robust stage even though it is pres-
ently in the rudimentary stage which is also possessed by higher nonhuman
animals. In Baker’s terms, while the adult has an in-hand (that is first-order)
capacity for a robust first-person perspective, the infant has a remote (that is
second-order) capacity for a robust first-person perspective. But this has the
further problematic consequence that if human infants are persons in virtue of
a remote capacity, then implanted embryos also have a remote capacity for a
rudimentary and then robust first-person perspective, and so it is hard to resist
the claim that they too are persons.
Inman’s observation highlights an instance of a more general problem that
arises for any view that takes personhood to reside in the potential to become
something later on: just how far back do we go in assigning personhood to the
progenitors of the entity bearing the property we consider essential? In short,
if personhood today is reliant on being the kind of thing that will normally
possess a robust first-person perspective tomorrow, then why extend person-
hood only to infancy? This development might seem welcome to a consti-
tution theorist like Corcoran who holds that abortion from the moment of
conception is prima facie morally wrong. However, Baker resists this further
extension of personhood, and she must do so because if it were accepted then
it would be clear that exemplification of a first-person perspective is neither
a sufficient condition of personhood (since there are nonhuman animal non-
persons that possess rudimentary first-person perspectives) nor a necessary
condition of personhood (there are human persons without first-person per-
spectives) and so the premise of the constitution view would be undermined:
first-person perspectives (at whatever stage) would no longer be essential for

personhood.
Christian materialists do not seem able to avoid holding that in an ethi-
cal conflict involving obligations to a person and a nonperson, the person
is at an advantage that is likely to be decisive. For this reason, the Christian
physicalist’s ethic of life is less weighty than that of the dualist and may
be too flimsy to survive any serious conflict with an obligation to a human
person. On Baker’s Constitution View, the need to mark out human persons
as distinctive and exceptional as compared with nonhuman animals possess-
ing similar capacities leads to an understanding of personhood in terms of a
disposition rather than a first-order capacity. However, this suggests that all
human beings should be considered to be persons, including those lacking a
first-person perspective. While this may be a welcome development for those
Christians seeking a robust ethic of life, it comes at the expense of undermin-
ing the essential nature of the first-person perspective and thus undermining
the constitution view itself.
CONCLUSION
Dualism is not irrelevant to practical concerns, and once this is accepted it

becomes clear that it can ground important concerns in Christian ethics in a
more robust way than materialist theories are able to do. If human persons
are wholly material, then an account of moral debt is likely to be caught
between the seemingly fruitless quest for an acceptable complex criterion of
identity (and thus attributability of actions) and the theologically objectionable
notion of grounding accountability in a similarity criterion entailing that moral
debts fade with the passage of time. The simple view offers a way out of this
dilemma, but probably at the cost of rejecting materialism. When it comes to
the scripturally and historically important Christian commitment to an ethic
of life, materialist views entailing the existence of human nonpersons as well
as human persons seem unable to avoid a distinction in metaphysical status
between them that places obligations to the human nonperson at a decisive dis-
advantage when in conflict with obligations to persons. A substance view of the
imago Dei underpinned by a dualist ontology of persons entails that there are
no human nonpersons and so this categorical distinction in value does not arise.
I hope to have shown that there are good reasons for Christians to affirm
traditional and widespread nonmaterialist views of human persons, and
among these are concerns to ensure a robust grounding for Christian ethics.
We cannot claim that a turn to Christian materialism is neutral with respect
to important Christian ethical concerns.45
NOTES
1. David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction (Ontario:

Broadview Press, 2009).
2. Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics, 32–33.
3. By “strong continuity” of brain, memory, or character, I refer to an overlapping
chain in which there is a high level of similarity between successive links. Continuity
of memory and character are assumed to be causally sustained by strong continuity
of the brain. See Richard Swinburne, “How to Determine Which is the True Theory
of Personal Identity,” in Personal Identity: Complex or Simple?, ed. Georg Gasser and
Matthias Stefan (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 107.
4. Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics, 32.
6. Peter van Inwagen, “The Possibility of Resurrection,” International Journal
for the Philosophy of Religion 9, no. 2 (1978): 114–21.
7. Kai-Man Kwan, The Rainbow of Experiences, Critical Trust, and God: A
Defense of Holistic Empiricism (New York: Continuum, 2011).
8. Swinburne, “How to Determine Which is the True Theory of Personal Iden-
tity,” 107.
9. Swinburne, 107, italics added.
10. See C. Stephen Evans, “Separable Souls: Dualism, Selfhood, and the Possibil-
ity of Life after Death,” Christian Scholar’s Review 34, no. 3 (2005): 327–40; Charles
Taliaferro, Consciousness and the Mind of God (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1994); John W Cooper, Body, Soul and the Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthro-
pology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000); Wil-
liam Hasker, The Emergent Self (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999).
11. Note that in separating the metaphysical criterion of identity from the evidence
of its presence, the soul criterion has the advantage that epistemic uncertainty is guar-
anteed not to be a reflection of metaphysical vagueness. There are determinate facts
about identity whether or not we know them.
12. Bruce E. Birch, “Scripture in Ethics: Methodological Issues,” in Dictionary of
Scripture and Ethics, ed. Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011),
30.
13. Bonnie Howe, “Accountability,” in Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics, 39.
14. David Shoemaker, “Responsibility without Identity,” The Harvard Review of
Philosophy XVIII (September 2012): 109–32.
15. Shoemaker, “Responsibility without Identity,” 111.
16. Shoemaker, “Responsibility without Identity,” 110.
17. Parfit coined the distinction between complex and simple views of personal
identity, writing that “the fact of personal identity over time just consists in the hold-
ing of certain other facts. It consists in various kinds of psychological continuity, of
memory, character, intention, and the like, which in turn rest upon bodily continuity”
(Derek Parfit, “Personal Identity and Rationality,” Synthese 53, no. 2 [1982]: 227).
18. Marya Schechtman, The Constitution of Selves (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 2007).
19. David Wiggins, Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity (Oxford: Blackwell,

1967), 50.
20. Should one respond with a four-dimensionalist metaphysic and thus hold that
numerical identity can be preserved through fission because there were two people
there all along, Shoemaker raises a similar “branch-line” case, derived from Parfit,
that is intended to produce the same intuitive response as the physical fission case
while involving the destruction of an individual rather than fission. The branch-line
case is then considered immune to the four-dimensionalist response (Shoemaker,
“Responsibility without Identity,” 119–20).
21. Wiggins, Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity, 124.
22. Of course, Shoemaker follows Parfit in this, and his discussion of physical fis-
sion prompting his rejection of numerical identity (Derek Parfit, “Personal Identity,”
The Philosophical Review 80, no. 1 [1971]; Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons [Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1984]). While Parfit holds that “identity is not what matters in
survival,” so Shoemaker holds that identity is not what matters in attributability.
23. The futility of the search for complex criteria of identity and the seeming ease
with which proposals are counterexampled is most likely due to the inability to render
personal identity determinate (Joseph Butler, “Of Personal Identity,” in The Works of
Joseph Butler [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897], 317–25; Parfit, “Personal Identity
and Rationality”; Swinburne, “How to Determine Which is the True Theory of Per-
sonal Identity”).
24. See and compare Lewis’s “Survival and Identity,” in The Identities of Persons
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976). Methuselah case for an instructive
example of the way in which personal identity might wane over time if identity is
grounded in a similarity relation.
25. Shoemaker’s rejection of numerical identity leaves us with a theologically
unacceptable notion of moral attributability and hence responsibility. In the same way,
Parfit’s rejection of numerical identity (after which Shoemakers’s account is shaped)
leaves us with an unacceptable notion of survival; what matters at the resurrection is
that the future individual is not just indistinguishable from me, but that he is numeri-
cally identical to me.
26. Parfit, “Personal identity and rationality”; Swinburne, “How to determine
which is the true theory of personal identity.”
27. See, for example, Lynne Rudder Baker, “Personal Identity: A Not-so-Simple
Simple View,” in Personal Identity: Complex of Simple? 179–91.
28. Paul Copan, “A Protestant Perspective on Human Dignity,” in Human Dignity
in Bioethics: From Worldviews to the Public Square, eds. Stephen Dilley and Nathan
J. Palpant (New York: Routledge, 2013), 74. Copan notes the valuation of persons in
the womb and as gifts from the Lord (Ps. 139:14; Isa. 49:5; Jer. 1:5; Luke 1:15, 44; cf.
1:42; 2:21; Ps. 127:3), obligations to the elderly and frail (Ps. 71:9, 18; Prov. 16:31;
20:29; 23:22)., concluding that, “With God, there are no ‘potential human beings’
(as opposed to ‘actual human beings’—no more so than a woman being ‘somewhat
pregnant’)” (Copan, “A Protestant Perspective,” 74).
29. David H. Calhoun, “Human Exceptionalism and the Imago Dei: The Tradi-
tion of Human Dignity and the Imago Dei,” in Human Dignity in Bioethics, 19–45.
Calhoun emphasizes the importance of understanding human dignity as a tradition

exploring human value and existence within the constraints of human exceptionalism
and the imago Dei. Human exceptionalism is the view that “humans are different from
and superior to all other living things, primarily due to the power of reasoning” (20),
while the imago Dei is the view that “humans reflect the divine image in a way unique
in the created order” (20). The tradition emerged from classical thought, was synthe-
sized in early Christianity, developed through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, was
modified and then attacked in the modern period and then restored in the twentieth
century.
30. Michael J Gorman, “Abortion,” in Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics, 36.
31. See Michael J. Gorman, Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish &
Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1998). As
a consequence of the obligation to love one’s neighbor, Gorman notes that Rabbinic
literature permits abortion to save the woman’s life.
32. Kevin J. Corcoran, “A Critical Appraisal of Francis Beckwith’s Defending
Life,” Philosophia Christi 12, no. 2 (2010): 452.
33. Kevin J Corcoran, Rethinking Human Nature (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker,
2006), 84–85.
34. Elsewhere, Corcoran writes: “I don’t want the following fact to go unnoticed:
I am in wholehearted agreement with Beckwith—abortion, from the moment of con-
ception, is prima facie morally wrong” (Corcoran, “A Critical Appraisal of Francis
Beckwith’s Defending Life,” 452).
36. Gregory E. Ganssle, “Metaphysics, Ethics and Personhood: A Response to
Kevin Corcoran,” Faith and Philosophy 22, no. 23 (2005): 373.
38. Peter Singer, “All Animals Are Equal,” Philosophical Exchange 1, no. 5 (Sum-
mer 1974): 243–57.
39. Additionally, a different ethical theory might avoid obligations to cause
significant harm to individuals (e.g., consider Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights
[Oakland: University of California Press, 1983], “rights” view).
40. Ganssle, “Metaphysics, Ethics and Personhood,” 374.
41. See Marc Cortez, Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed
(London: T & T Clark, 2010), 16–17. Cortez notes wide agreement that an adequate
account of the image (or, likeness) of God will include reflecting God in creation,
possession by all humans, the possibility of being affected by sin, and a christological
and teleological nature.
42. Corcoran, “A Critical Appraisal of Francis Beckwith’s Defending Life,” 86.
43. Joshua R. Farris, “A Sustantive (Soul) Model of the Imago Dei: A Rich Prop-
erty View,” in The Ashgate Companion to Theological Anthropology (Farnham, UK:
Ashgate, 2015), 168; see also J. P. Moreland, The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human
Persons and the Failure of Naturalism (London: SCM Press, 2009).
44. Ross Inman, “Against Constitutionalism,” in The Blackwell Companion to
Substance Dualism, eds. Jonathan J. Loose, Angus J. L. Menuge, and J. P. Moreland
(Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming, 2018).
45. I am grateful to Angus Menuge for comments on an earlier draft of this

chapter.
Birch, Bruce E. “Scripture in Ethics: Methodological Issues.” In Dictionary of Scrip-

ture and Ethics, edited by Joel B. Green. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,
2011.
Calhoun, David H. “Human Exceptionalism and the Imago Dei: The Tradition of
Human Dignity and the Imago Dei.” In Human Dignity in Bioethics: From World-
views to the Public Square, edited by Stephen Dilley and Nathan J. Palpant. New
York: Routledge, 2013.
Copan, Paul. “A Protestant Perspective on Human Dignity.” In Human Dignity in
Bioethics: From Worldviews to the Public Square, edited by Stephen Dilley and
Nathan J. Palpant. New York: Routledge, 2013.
Corcoran, Kevin J. Rethinking Human Nature. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing
Group, 2006.
Cortez, Marc. Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: T &
T Clark, 2010.
Ganssle, Gregory E. “Metaphysics, Ethics and Personhood: A Response to Kevin
Corcoran.” Faith and Philosophy 22, no. 23 (2005): 370–376.
Gorman, Michael J. Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish & Pagan Atti-
tudes in the Greco-Roman World. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1998.
Inman, Ross. “Against Constitutionalism.” In The Blackwell Companion to Substance
Moreland, J.P. The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Natu-
ralism. London: SCM Press, 2009.
Shoemaker, David. Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction. Ontario:
Broadview Press, 2009.
———. “Responsibility without Identity.” The Harvard Review of Philosophy XVIII
(September 2012): 109–32.
Swinburne, Richard. “How to Determine Which is the True Theory of Personal
Identity.” In Personal Identity: Complex of Simple?, edited by Georg Gasser and
Matthias Stefan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Chapter 19
The Incompatibility of
Physicalism with Physics
Bruce L. Gordon
The physicalist thesis, in broadest terms, is an ontological claim: whatever

exists or occurs is ultimately constituted out of physical entities, where physi-
cal entities are anything wholly composed of material simples, namely, the
most fundamental constituents of material reality as determined by elemen-
tary particle physics.1 This ontological physicalism (materialism) comes in
reductionist, eliminativist, and nonreductionist varieties. Reductive physi-
calists contend that psychological and biological properties are ultimately
explainable in the language of particle physics; eliminativists claim that psy-
chological and biological properties are illusory and the only real properties
are physical; and nonreductive physicalists maintain that, while there isn’t
anything that isn’t physical, efforts to explain psychological and biological
properties in purely physical terms are misguided and will inevitably miss
laws, generalizations, and explanations that can only be formulated using
psychological or biological concepts. Regardless of whether the physicalist
understands his explanatory project in terms of ultimate reducibility to the
physical, complete elimination of the nonphysical, or irreducible explanatory
levels ultimately dependent only on what is physical, it is clear that the ten-
ability of the physicalist thesis has, as a necessary condition, the existence
and causal closure of the material realm under the aegis of modern physical
theory. At a minimum, this entails that macroscopic material objecthood and
behavior either be reducible to, supervenient upon, or emergent from the exis-
tence and behavior of material reality at the microscopic level, and for micro-
physics itself to be consistent with the existence and causality requirements
of physicalism. In short, it requires a fundamental physical theory—that is,
quantum physics—to parse matter in terms of material simples and to cast
all events in the purely material realm as dependent upon them and emergent
from them by efficient material causation.
371
372 Bruce L. Gordon
And therein lies the rub, for as we shall see, the physicalist thesis is
r endered untenable by the phenomena of quantum physics. Neither quantum
entities nor the macroscopic objects that depend upon them have metaphysi-
cal identities compliant with physicalist requirements, and nonlocal quantum
correlations violate sufficient material causality in ways showing either that
physical reality is explanatorily incomplete or that the principle of sufficient
reason (that every contingent event has an explanation) is false. If the latter
horn of the dilemma is grasped, human knowing in general and scientific
knowledge in particular are undermined to such an extent that physicalist
doctrine becomes unsustainable. If the former horn of the dilemma is grasped,
physicalist strictures on explanation are violated, and physicalism itself is
seen to be false: in light of the principle of sufficient reason, the explanatory
insufficiency of material causation leads directly to the need for transcendent
causation in the form of divine action.2 Specifically, to be consistent with
quantum physics, the divine action that grounds physical regularity must be
conceived in occasionalist rather than secondary causational terms. Further-
more, the quantum-theoretic dissolution of material substances mandates that
this occasionalism be realized in an idealist (immaterialist) metaphysical con-
text, rendering material identity a phenomenological rather than a substantial
construct. Needless to say, such conclusions have profoundly antiphysicalist
implications both for the nature of human persons and the nature of reality
itself.
These are strong claims and an extended argument is needed. We will
begin our inversion of the physicalist narrative by showing how the physics
on which physicalism depends renders it untenable. After a brief discussion
of the significance of the irreducibly probabilistic nature of quantum descrip-
tions, nonlocal quantum phenomena, and the measurement problem, we will
work our way through supervenience and emergence accounts of ways that
the macroproperties of material objects might depend on their microproper-
ties, showing that no notion of material substance or nomological necessity
survives the quantum-theoretic dissolution of material identity and causal-
ity. What remains of the world in fundamental physics are phenomena that
conform to certain structural constraints but do not have their genesis in a
substantial material reality. This ontic structural realism is incompatible with
physicalism and requires a radically different metaphysical orientation that
flips the physicalist dependency relation on its head: mental properties do
not supervene on physical properties; rather, physical properties depend on
mental properties. The argument will culminate with an explanation of this
dependency, making the case for an occasionalist idealism in which material
objects, qua material, are mere phenomenological entities that we are caused
to perceive by God and which have no nonmental reality. Ironically, physical-
ism turns out to be not only incompatible with physics, but physics mandates
The Incompatibility of Physicalism with Physics 373
a kind of immaterialist quantum idealism (neo-Berkeleyan occasionalist

idealism) in which esse est percipi aut percipere: to be is to be perceived or
to be a perceiver.
A PRÉCIS OF QUANTUM PHYSICS
Quantum theory—which is a pillar of modern physics that includes quantum

mechanics and various quantum field theories—is the mathematical theory
describing the behavior of reality at the atomic and subatomic level.3 At
dimensions this small, the world behaves very differently than the world
of our ordinary experience. This peculiarity is a consequence of the basic
quantum hypothesis: energy does not have a continuous range of values but
is absorbed and radiated discontinuously in units (quanta) that are multiples
of Planck’s constant. While this quantum hypothesis was put forward by Max
Planck in 1900 to explain black body radiation (energy emitted by a nonre-
flecting body due to its own heat), the work of Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr,
and others soon showed it was foundational to the whole of physics.4
The peculiarity of the quantum realm is evident in the classic double-slit
experiment demonstrating the wave-particle duality of light.5 To visualize the
situation, consider two waves of the same size (amplitude) traveling through
water in opposite directions. Each wave has a crest (its highest point) and
a trough (its lowest point). When they meet, they move through each other
in various phases of superposition. Since they have the same size, when a
crest meets a crest or a trough meets a trough, it will amplify respectively
to twice its height or depth, and when a crest meets a trough, each cancels
the other and the water is level. The former behavior is called constructive
interference and the latter destructive interference. Light exhibits these kinds
of interference—manifested as closely spaced light and dark bands on a
projection screen—when passed through two narrow parallel slits. So light
has a wave nature. But light also knocks electrons out of a variety of metals
and therefore, as Einstein’s 1905 explanation of this “photoelectric effect”
demonstrated, exists as packets of energy called photons that behave like par-
ticles. This strange quantum-mechanical wave-particle duality is displayed in
the double-slit experiment. When very low-intensity light is directed through
narrow parallel slits, an interference pattern builds up on a photographic plate
one spot at a time, manifesting the wave nature of light in the emerging inter-
ference pattern and the particle nature of light in its spotty accumulation. The
pattern emerges if only one photon is in the apparatus at a given time and it
disappears if one of the slits is covered. So, each photon behaves as though
it passes through both slits and interferes with itself, something that, from the
standpoint of classical (nonquantum) physics and our ordinary experience
374 Bruce L. Gordon
of the world, is impossible. What is more, matter particles display this same
wave-particle duality under similar experimental conditions, as the Davisson-
Germer experiment demonstrated for electrons.6
The way that quantum mechanics deals with such things is to set aside clas-
sical conceptions of motion and the interaction of bodies and to introduce acts
of measurement and probabilities for observational outcomes in an irreduc-
ible way, that is, in a way that cannot be resolved by an appeal to our inability
to observe what is actually happening (in fact, quantum theory shows this
peculiarity is intrinsic to reality rather than an artifact of our limited knowl-
edge). In classical mechanics, the state of a physical system at a particular
time is completely specified by giving the precise position and momentum
of all its constituent particles, after which the equations of motion determine
the state of the system at all later times. In this sense, classical mechanics is
deterministic. But quantum mechanics does not describe systems by states
in which particle position and momentum, for example, have simultaneously
defined values. Instead, the state of the system is described by an abstract
mathematical object called a wavefunction.7 As long as the system is not
being measured, the wavefunction develops deterministically through time,
but it only specifies the probability that various observables (like position
or momentum) will, when measured, have a particular value. Furthermore,
not all such probabilities can equal zero or one (be absolutely determinate).
This fact is expressed in Heisenberg’s indeterminacy/uncertainty principle:
no mathematical description of the state of a quantum system assigns prob-
ability 1 (determinateness) to the simultaneous existence of exact values for
certain “complementary” pairs of observables. The particular value result-
ing from the measurement of a quantum observable is therefore irreducibly
probabilistic in the sense that no sufficient condition is provided for this value
being observed rather than another that is permitted by the wavefunction.
This is one sense in which quantum theory is indeterministic. Also, since all
the information about a quantum system is contained in its wavefunction,
no measurement of the current state of a system suffices to determine the
value that a later measurement of an observable will reveal. This is another
(related) sense in which quantum theory is indeterministic. Applied to the
double-slit experiment, the quantum wavefunction gives a probability distri-
bution for measurement outcomes associated with a photon being observed
to hit the photographic plate in a certain region when a measurement is made.
This probability distribution describes the interference pattern on the plate
that results when both slits are open, even if just one photon is sent through
at a time.
This way of describing physical systems has further paradoxical conse-
quences that conform to experimental observations. Albert Einstein, Boris
Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen pointed out one of these paradoxes in 1935,
arguing that the quantum description of physical systems must be incomplete

because there are elements of reality that quantum theory does not recog-
nize. To make this case, they considered a situation in which two quantum
particles interact so as to “entangle” their spatial coordinates with each other
and their linear momenta with each other.8 As a result of this wavefunction
entanglement, measuring either the position or the momentum for one par-
ticle instantaneously fixes the value for that same observable for the other
particle, no matter how far apart they are. If one assumes, as the 1935 paper
did, that what counts as an element of reality for the second particle is inde-
pendent of which measurement is performed on the first particle, then real-
ity can be attributed to both the position and the momentum of the second
particle since measuring the position or the momentum of the first fixes the
position or the momentum of the second without disturbing it and without
any signal (subject to the limiting velocity of light) having passed between
them. As Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) put it, “[i]f, without in any
way disturbing a system, we can predict with certainty (i.e., with probability
equal to unity) the value of a physical quantity, then there exists an element
of physical reality corresponding to this physical quantity.”9 Since quantum
theory does not allow the second particle to have both position and momen-
tum simultaneously, it is incomplete.
By way of response, Bohr argued that EPR missed the point of quantum-
mechanical descriptions by ignoring the different contexts of measurement.10
He agreed that measuring either the position or the momentum of one particle
would render either the position or the momentum of the other particle an
element of reality, but denied that the results from these different experimen-
tal contexts could be combined. In other words, if we try to make context-
independent claims about what is real in a distant system, we will violate
quantum-mechanical predictions and run afoul of experiment. This amounts
to the claim that measurement of the first particle can constitute what is real
about the second particle, even when they are separated by a distance that
would prohibit any signal (subject to the limiting velocity of light) from pass-
ing between them.
While Bohr’s attempt to justify these claims generated much confusion,11
John Bell’s work on the EPR argument and missing elements of reality,12
along with subsequent experimental tests,13 have shown that Bohr was essen-
tially correct and Einstein wrong about the completeness of quantum mechan-
ics. As we have noted, the wavefunctions of interacting quantum systems can
become entangled in such a way that what happens to one of them instanta-
neously affects the other, no matter how far apart they have separated. Since
local effects obey the constraints of special relativity and propagate at speeds
less than or equal to that of light, such instantaneous correlations are called
nonlocal, and the quantum systems manifesting them are said to exhibit
376 Bruce L. Gordon
nonlocality. What John Bell showed is that, if quantum theory is correct, no

hidden variables (empirically undetectable elements of reality) can be added
to the description of quantum systems exhibiting nonlocal behavior that
would explain these instantaneous correlations on the basis of local consid-
erations. As indicated, subsequent experiment showed that quantum theory
is correct and complete as it stands. But since all physical cause-and-effect
relations are local, the completeness of quantum theory implies the physical
incompleteness of reality: the universe is shot through with mathematically
predictable nonlocal correlations that, on pain of experimental contradiction,
have no physical cause.14
The radicalness of nonlocality is actually deeper than this because it
extends to isolated quanta as well. Stated roughly, it has been shown that if
one makes the reasonable assumptions that an individual quantum can neither
serve as an infinite source of energy nor be in two places at once, then that
particle has zero probability of being found in any bounded spatial region,
no matter how large.15 In short, unobserved quanta do not exist anywhere
in space, and so, to be honest, have no existence at all apart from measure-
ment!16 Hans Halvorson and Robert Clifton closed some minor loopholes
and extended this argument by demonstrating that the Hegerfeldt-Malament
result holds under even more general conditions—including when the stan-
dard relativistic assumption that there is no privileged reference frame is
dropped.17 The proper conclusion seems to be that there is no intelligible
notion of microscopic material objects: particle talk has pragmatic utility in
relation to measurement results and macroscopic appearances, but no basis in
an unobserved and independent microphysical reality.
So how should we understand the relationship and transition between the
microscopic and the macroscopic world? This question leads to the second
famous paradox of quantum theory, the measurement problem, which was
first described in Erwin Schrödinger’s famous “cat paradox” paper.18 In
Schrödinger’s iconic example, a radioactive atom with an even chance of
decaying in the next hour is enclosed in a chamber containing a cat and a
glass vial of poison. If a Geiger counter detects the radioactive decay of the
atom in that hour, it triggers a relay that causes a hammer to smash the vial
and release the poison, thus killing the cat; otherwise, the cat survives. After
an hour, the quantum wavefunction for the whole system (atom + counter +
relay + hammer + vial + cat) is in an unresolved superposition that involves
the cat being neither dead nor alive. The question of where and how the
superpositions in the wavefunction “collapse” into a determinate result is
the essence of the measurement problem. Is such a determinate result the
consequence of some special random process? Is it due to the quantum sys-
tem’s interaction with a macroscopic measurement device? Is it somehow
connected to the act of observation itself? Is determinateness perhaps not
manifested until the result is recognized by a conscious observer? This issue

arises because every quantum wavefunction is expressible as a superposi-
tion of different states in which the thing it describes, say an alpha particle
that could be ejected from an atomic nucleus, fails to possess the properties
specified by those states. At any given time, then, some features of a quantum
object occupy an ethereal realm between existence and nonexistence. Nothing
subject to a quantum description ever has simultaneously determinate values
for all its associated properties. And these ethereal superpositions percolate
upward into the macroscopic realm because anything composed of quanta is
always also intrinsically in a superposition of states, even though destructive
interference (what physicists call environmental decoherence) may give the
appearance that the wavefunction has “collapsed” into the single reality we
observe.19 What is more, under special conditions in the laboratory, we can
create macroscopic superpositions. A clear example is provided by Supercon-
ducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs). SQUID states have been
combined in which over a billion electrons move in a clockwise direction
around a small superconducting ring, while another billion or more electrons
simultaneously move around the ring in an anticlockwise direction, meaning
that the two incompatible currents are in superposition.20 With respect to this
macroscopic quantum realization superposing classically incompatible states,
the pressing question is: in what direction are the electrons supposed to be
moving? Which of these classically incompatible macroscopic states is sup-
posed to be the real one?
So it is that quantum theory raises fundamental questions about the exis-
tence of material identity, individuality, and causality that pose a prima facie
problem for physicalist metaphysics: if material reality is sufficient unto
itself, as physicalists insist, then, provided that quantum theory is correct, in
what does the intrinsic substantial nature of material reality consist? What
is more, given the irreducibly probabilistic nature of quantum outcomes and
their demonstrable nonlocality, and given relativistic constraints on material
causality, in what does the causal integrity and sufficiency of material real-
ity consist? Why, in naturalistic metaphysics, if quantum outcomes lack any
material explanation, does the physical universe cohere at all, let alone in a
way that makes science possible?
ON REDUCIBILITY, SUPERVENIENCE, AND EMERGENCE
The basic dependency relation for the ontological physicalist must be that
of the world of medium-sized dry goods upon the microphysical realm,
and this dependency relation will have to be spelled out in terms of either a
reducibility thesis, or a more relaxed supervenience and/or emergence thesis.
378 Bruce L. Gordon
We begin by examining the explanatory prospects associated with various

ways in which macroscopic properties might supervene on microscopic prop-
erties, demonstrating their inadequacy for physicalist purposes, then turn to
a concept of emergence to evaluate its (in)ability to elucidate the transition
between the microscopic and the macroscopic realm in ways useful to the
physicalist.
Not So Super Supervenience

The physicalist account of the dependency relation of the macroscopic on
the microscopic realm, understood as a supervenience thesis, must therefore
be a kind of mereological supervenience in which the macroproperties of
material things supervene on their microproperties. We may think of this
mereological supervenience relation in a variety of ways. If it is to be distinct
from a nomological or even broadly logical (metaphysical) reducibility, the
relationship between the macro and micro realms will need to be anomalous
in much the same way that Davidson’s anomalous monism21 tries to account
for the supervenience of the mental on the physical. Using a distinction due to
Jaegwon Kim, this requires (as we will presently explain) weak as opposed to
strong supervenience, but as we shall see, weak mereological supervenience
is insufficient to ground the de re objecthood of macroscopic objects in rel-
evant microproperties.
Strong mereological supervenience is what the physicalist requires, and
this commits him to the reducibility of the macroworld to the microworld
through causal bridge laws of some sort. Nonreductive physicalism is not
an option in this context. What the physicalist needs is a nomological speci-
fication of how macroscopic material objecthood emerges necessarily from
intrinsic facts concerning the parts which compose it, together with the spatial
relationships among those parts. But this is problematic in light of quantal
nonlocalizability, which denies spatiotemporal location to the fundamental
quantum “parts” of macroscopic objects, thereby preventing their possession
of any of the other determinate properties requisite to mereological contribu-
tions to macroscopic objecthood. In short, the quantum “components” of a
macroscopic system cannot participate in the kind of causal analysis that the
physicalist requires since they have no intrinsic identities, they are not indi-
viduals, and arguably not material objects at all. If quantum physics is correct,
it would seem that the identities of material objects, if there be such, do not
reside in a de re physical substantiality that grounds an intrinsic identification.
Let’s examine this conclusion more carefully by setting out the definitions
of weak, strong, global, and mereological supervenience, noting that strong
supervenience implies global supervenience. These distinctions originate
with the work of Jaegwon Kim22 and have become standard. Mereological
(whole-part) supervenience may be defined in this way:
The macroproperties of material things are supervenient on their microproperties.
If A and B are families of properties, weak supervenience may be defined as

follows:
A weakly supervenes on B just in case, necessarily, for any x and y, if x and y

share all properties in B then x and y share all properties in A, that is, indiscern-
ibility with respect to B entails indiscernibility with respect to A.
If we let A and B be families of properties closed under Boolean operations,

this definition has the following equivalent formulation:
A weakly supervenes on B just in case, necessarily, for any property F in A, if

an object x has F, then there exists a property G in B such that x has G, and if
any y has G it has F.
So we can say that:
If A weakly supervenes on B, then necessarily, for every F in A there is a prop-

erty G in B such that ∀x(Gx → Fx).
If infinite conjunction and disjunction are assumed, then this last statement
can be strengthened to a biconditional so that every A-property has a coexten-
sion in B.
Strong supervenience can be constructed from weak supervenience when
it is realized that weak supervenience does not carry the right kind of modal
force—fixing the base properties (those in B) does not fix the supervenient
properties (those in A). Putting it in terms of possible world semantics, weak
supervenience requires that within each world the G–F generalization must
hold. But this generalization does not have to be stable across worlds. To
ensure the stability of the relationship between the base properties and the
supervenient properties, we need to introduce a suitable modal operator. If A
and B are families of properties closed under Boolean operations, then strong
supervenience can be defined as:
A strongly supervenes on B just in case, necessarily, for each x and each prop-
erty F in A, if x has F, then there is a property G in B such that x has G, and
necessarily, if any y has G, it has F.
Note that the modal term “necessarily” occurs twice in this definition and dif-
ferent understandings will result depending on how it is read in each instance
(logically, metaphysically, nomologically). In the case of strong mereological
supervenience, Kim suggests that the most plausible construal is to take the
first occurrence to signify metaphysical necessity, and the second to represent
380 Bruce L. Gordon
nomological/physical necessity (assuming there is a coherent notion of

physical necessity, an assumption we will find presently to be philosophically
problematic and quantum-theoretically untenable). In analogy with weak
supervenience we may write:
If A strongly supervenes on B, then for every F in A there is a property G in B

such that □∀x(Gx → Fx).
With infinite conjunction and disjunction assumed, this can be strengthened

as before to a biconditional so that for every A-property there is a necessarily
coextensive B-property. Strong supervenience entails weak supervenience,
but not vice versa. It is also worthwhile to note that the concept of global
supervenience can be shown to be implied by that of strong supervenience.
Global supervenience may be defined as:
A globally supervenes on B just in case worlds that are indiscernible with respect
to B are also indiscernible with respect to A.
This gives us all the tools we need to make our argument. The question we
want to address is whether a de re property of macroscopic objecthood can
supervene on a microphysical realm where there is no objecthood. Setting
aside the absence of objecthood in the quantum realm for a moment, it is clear
that weak supervenience is not the right kind of supervenience to provide for
the possibility of modality de re in the macroscopic physical realm. Essen-
tial properties are possessed by an object in every world in which it exists,
and material objecthood is an essential property of every material object (it
could not be a material object and lack this property), but if we suppose that
the macroscopic material objecthood of an object O weakly mereologically
supervenes on a family Q of properties constituting its quantum properties in
the actual world, then weak supervenience still allows for these possibilities:
1. In the actual world, any O possessing the properties in Q is a material

object, but in another possible world, every such O is not a material object;
2. In the actual world, any O possessing the properties in Q is a material
object, but in another world exactly like it in respect of the distribution of
the properties in Q, nothing is a material object; and
3. In another possible world just like the actual world in respect of what has
or lacks the properties in Q, everything is a material object.
Lest we doubt that weak mereological supervenience allows for these possibili-
ties, remember that all it requires23 is that within any possible world there not
be two things agreeing with respect to Q but diverging with respect to macro-
scopic material objecthood, and this condition is satisfied in all three of these
cases. In particular, weak mereological supervenience does not require that if in

another world an object has the same Q-properties it has in the actual world, it
must have the same property of macroscopic material objecthood. Any specific
associations between Q-properties and macroscopic objecthood in the actual
world—if there were such—would not necessarily carry over into other worlds.
So we can see that weak mereological supervenience will not do as an account
of de re macroscopic objecthood supervening on the quantum realm.
What the physicalist needs is for the base properties to determine the
supervenient properties in the sense that once the former are fixed for an
object, there is no freedom to vary the latter. This leaves strong mereological
supervenience, or by entailment, global mereological supervenience, as the
remaining option. But, as we shall see, the fact that there are no quantum
objects becomes critical at this point. Strong mereological supervenience can
be expressed as:
For every property M in the macroscopic realm, there is a (possibly conjunctive

or disjunctive) property Q in the quantum realm such that, necessarily, for every
material object O, if O has Q, then O has M.
This condition must hold for the macroscopic property of material objecthood
when it is predicated of O, but what will the base property Q be that provides
a sufficient condition for O possessing macroscopic material objecthood
necessarily? The type of necessity involved here seems to be broad logical
(metaphysical) necessity, so what the physicalist needs here is an explicit
account of how macroscopic material objecthood for the whole is necessi-
tated by the intrinsic facts concerning the parts that compose it, together with
the spatial relationships among these parts. This, in effect, is the criterion put
forth by Terence Horgan,24 though he frames it in terms of global superve-
nience rather than strong supervenience when the latter might have served
his purposes better. In any case, Horgan takes things like electrons, protons,
neutrons, and quarks to be natural kinds and characterizes the relationship of
physical accessibility between the actual world and other possible worlds in
his supervenience thesis this way:
Let a P-world be a possible world that is physically accessible from the actual
world. All P-worlds are worlds in which (1) all the entities are either entities
whose specific natural kinds are actual-world natural kinds or are fully decom-
posable into such; and (2) all fundamental microphysical properties are proper-
ties explicitly cited in the laws of actual-world microphysics.25
Horgan is not just concerned with whole P-worlds, however, but more specifi-
cally, with particular spatiotemporal regions within P-worlds. He thus arrives
at a broadly logical localized supervenience principle he states as follows:
382 Bruce L. Gordon
There do not exist any two P-regions that are exactly alike in all qualitative
intrinsic microphysical features but differ in respect of some other qualitative
intrinsic feature.26
Stated positively, this implies that
The macroscopic properties of P-region A globally supervene on the intrinsic

microphysical features of P-region A just in case worlds which are indiscernible
with respect to the intrinsic microphysical features of P-region A are also indis-
cernible with respect to the macroscopic properties of P-region A.
Since global supervenience is implied by strong supervenience, this char-

acterization is entailed by the criterion that for every macroscopic property
M of P-region A there is a quantum property Q of P-region A such that, in
a broadly logical sense, necessarily, everything exemplifying Q exemplifies
M. If P-region A is taken to be coterminous with macroscopic object O, we
are back to the expression of strong mereological supervenience that I gave
above. Defending the supervenience of the macroscopic realm on the quan-
tum realm therefore seems to commit the physicalist, at least in principle, to
the broadly logical and nomological reducibility of the macroworld to the
microworld.
Since the physicalist must maintain the supervenience of medium-sized dry
goods on the quantum realm, he needs to give a metaphysical specification
of how the macroscopic material objecthood of the whole is necessitated by
intrinsic facts concerning the parts which compose it, together with the spatial
relationships among those parts. But now our earlier observations about the
nature of quantum reality come to bear. The fundamental quantum “parts” of
macroscopic objects don’t have well-defined spatiotemporal location and are
not subject to this kind of metaphysical analysis. They are not autonomous
material objects, they do not possess a complete set of determinate proper-
ties, they have no intrinsic identities, they are not individuals, and have no
substantial material existence. As if this were not enough, where nonlocal
phenomena are concerned, no supervenience of nonlocal quantum systems
on the properties of various subsystems taken separately or in other combi-
nations is possible (the relevant joint probabilities are not factorizable), nor,
for this very reason, are there objective properties of the system immediately
prior to measurement that can provide the nomologically necessary connec-
tion to measurement results required by any viable supervenience explanation
of the macroscopic on the microscopic realm (postulation of such objective
properties leads to empirically false consequences for both local deterministic
and local stochastic models).27 Whence, then, the supervenience explana-
tion of macroscopic material objecthood? Nowhere at all, it would seem;
supervenience explanations are a complete nonstarter in the quantum context.

In a delicious irony, physical theory has rendered impossible any physicalist
account of the supervenience of macroscopic objects on microphysical enti-
ties and laws.
“Not so fast,” the physicalist objects, “you haven’t countenanced the pos-
sibility that macroscopic material objecthood is an irreducible emergent prop-
erty of certain quantum systems!” True enough, so let’s do that.
Emergence as Limit Behavior: Descriptively True but

Metaphysically Unhelpful
There is a sense of “emergence” appropriate to quantum physics in which
classical (Maxwell-Boltzmann) statistical behavior can be understood to
emerge from quantum (bosonic and fermionic) statistics in both classical-
mechanical and classical statistical limits. While these limits are useful in
understanding how quantum descriptions can give rise to classical appear-
ances, they are metaphysically unenlightening where relevant, and irrelevant
in the case of nonlocal behavior. Let me briefly explain.28
With the standard definitions of the Poisson and commutator brackets, the
classical mechanical limit (CM limit) of a quantum system is defined to be
1 ) )
lim  A , B = {A , B}.
h → 0 ih  
This limit is fictional, of course, because ħ is a physical constant. The limit

represents the transition between the quantum and classical descriptions of
a system; classical behavior “emerges” when quantum effects are dampened
to the point of negligibility. It is important to note, however, that there are
still residual effects (dependent on Planck’s constant) even after the classical
mechanical limit is taken and the underlying reality is still quantum-mechan-
ical in character.
Statistical mechanics mathematically relates the thermodynamic properties
of macroscopic objects to the motion of their microscopic constituents. Since
the microscopic constituents obey quantum dynamics, the correct description
must lie in principle within the domain of quantum statistical mechanics.
Under thermodynamic conditions of high temperature (T) and low density
(n), however, classical statistical mechanics serves as a useful approximation.
With this in mind, the classical statistical limit (CS limit) may be defined as
the situation represented by:
T → ∞ and n → 0.
384 Bruce L. Gordon
These are the same conditions as those governing the applicability of the
ideal gas law (pV = nRT), so the CS limit could equally well be called the
ideal gas limit. Unlike the CM limit, the conditions governing the CS limit
are subject to experimental control. In respect of quantum statistical behavior,
both the CM and the CS limits are continuous, so the quantum indistinguish-
ability arising from permutation symmetry is not removed, even though it is
dampened in the limit. Quantum “particles” retain their indistinguishability
even when their aggregate behavior can be approximated by a Maxwell-
Boltzmann distribution.
These reflections lay the ground for understanding why any emergentist
account of the dependence of the macroscopic realm on the microscopic
realm, while perhaps descriptively interesting, will be unenlightening as
a metaphysical explanation. It is environmental decoherence (essentially,
statistical damping through wavefunction orthogonalization) that gives quan-
tum-mechanical ephemera a cloak of macroscopic stability, but decoherence
is not a real solution to the measurement problem. The apparent solidity of the
world of our experience is a mere epiphenomenon of quantum statistics; the
underlying phenomena retain their quantum-theoretic essence while sustain-
ing classical appearances.
Emergence and Irreducibility

The essence of emergentism is a layered view of nature. The world is divided
into ontological strata beginning with fundamental physics and ascending
through chemistry, biology, neuropsychology, and sociology. The levels
correspond to successive organizational complexities of matter, and at each
successive level there is a special science dealing with the complex structures
possessing the distinguishing causal characteristics of that level. Higher-level
causal patterns necessarily supervene on (are dependent upon) lower-level
causal interactions, but are not reducible to them. The picture, then, is of
emergent nomological structures irreducible to lower-level laws, with emer-
gent features that not only affect the level at which they appear, but also
exercise “downward causation” on lower-level phenomena.
Moving beyond hand-waving declarations of the “lawful” character of
emergence requires giving an account of the relationship between basal
physical conditions and emergent properties. Brian McLaughlin29 and Jaeg-
won Kim30 have both attempted articulations of emergence in terms of what
O’Connor and Wong31 term “synchronic strong supervenience”: given basal
conditions C at time t, an emergent property P strongly supervening on condi-
tions C will appear at time t. McLaughlin32 defines such emergent properties
in terms of strong supervenience as follows:
If P is a property of w, then P is emergent if and only if (1) P supervenes with

nomological necessity, but not with logical necessity, on properties the parts of
w have taken separately or in other combinations; and (2) some of the super-
venience principles linking properties of the parts of w with w’s having P are
fundamental laws.
McLaughlin defines a fundamental law as one that is not metaphysically

necessitated by any other laws, even together with initial conditions. While
Kim33 also understands emergence as a form of strong synchronic superve-
nience, it is important to note that he also regards emergent properties as
epiphenomenal and challenges the tenability of nonreductive physicalism
on this basis (he is a physical reductionist). These arguments need not con-
cern us here but have received responses from Barry Loewer34 and Sydney
Shoemaker.35 The property-fusion account of emergence developed by Paul
Humphreys36 circumvents Kim’s objections because it is not synchronic and
because emergent properties are fusions of the basal properties, which then
cease to exist.
The supervenience account of emergence will not suffice in the quantum
context for reasons we have already discussed, most notably because nonlo-
cal phenomena do not supervene on the properties of the various subsystems
taken separately or in other combinations, and any viable account of nomo-
logical necessity in the quantum realm would have to connect objective prop-
erties of the system immediately prior to measurement with the measurement
results obtained. Such restrictions lead to empirically false consequences for
both local deterministic and local stochastic models. As we shall see momen-
tarily, however, a nonsupervenient description of quantum emergence suffers
from a sort of explanatory vacuity, and also founders on ontological contra-
dictions arising from the postulation of nonlocal wholes or—if a privileged
reference frame is postulated—on the nonlocalizability of individual quanta.
Property Fusion as an Account of Emergent Ontological

Hierarchies
Paul Humphreys has developed a concept of emergence in terms of “property
fusion” that he suggests can be used to describe entangled states in quantum
theory.37 His account assumes the existence of a hierarchy of distinct onto-
logical levels, which he expresses in the form of a “level-assumption”:
(L) There is a hierarchy of levels of properties, L0, L1…, Ln… of which at least
one distinct level is associated with the subject matter of each special science,
and Lj cannot be reduced to Li for any i < j.
386 Bruce L. Gordon
A property Pi is then defined to be an “i-level property” just in case i is the

lowest level at which instances of the property occur. A set of properties
{P1i, P2i,…, Pmi,…} is associated with each level i, where Pmi denotes the mth
property at the i-level. A parallel hierarchy of entities is postulated: xi is an
i-level entity just in case i is the lowest level at which it exists and xmi denotes
the mth entity at the i-level.
To characterize the property-fusion operation, Humphreys uses the nota-
tion Pmi(x ri)(t), which denotes an instantiation of property Pmi by entity x ri at
time t, because he regards property instances as being more fundamental than
properties. We will suppress references to specific individuals and times to
simplify the notation. The fusion operation [.*.] is defined by Humphreys as a
process that combines two i-level properties Pmi and Pni to form an (i+1)-level
property [Pmi * Pni]; this fusion could equally well be represented by the nota-
tion Pm,ni+0. Once the basal properties have fused in this manner, they cease to
exist and the new emergent property is all that remains.
Humphreys argues that entangled (or nonseparable) states in quantum
mechanics lend themselves to description in terms of property fusion,
maintaining that the emergent entangled state will remain intact so long as
nonseparability persists. He thinks this can be the case even after the inter-
action ceases, whereas Fred Kronz and Justin Tiehen38 adopt Humphreys’s
conception of property fusion but argue that persistence of the interaction is
necessary for continued emergence. The arguments for this difference need
not concern us. The more pressing concern is whether this technical account
of emergence is explanatorily useful and metaphysically tenable in relation
to nonlocal phenomena.
The Kronz-Tiehen Taxonomy for Quantum Mereology

On the basis of their discussion of fusion in the context of quantum chemistry,
Kronz and Tiehen39 suggest that there are at least three ways that philosophers
could develop a metaphysical account of emergence in mereological terms;
they advocate the last of the three. Since it is instructive to do so, we will
briefly consider all three options.
Before examining these accounts, however, we need definitions of two
background ideas employed by Kronz and Tiehen: independent characteriza-
tions of entities and contemporaneous parts. A characterization of an entity
is an exhaustive list of the properties that are instantiated by that entity and
this characterization is said to be independent just in case the elements on
the list of its properties make no essential reference to some other entity.
Secondly, an entity is said to be a contemporaneous part of some whole just
in case that part exists while the whole does. (In relativistic contexts, Kronz
and Tiehen make this relation reference-frame dependent in order to preserve
standard interpretations of Lorentz invariance in terms of the relativity of

simultaneity.) So armed, they define three conceptions of emergence:
Prototypical Emergence
The idea here is that every whole consists of contemporaneous parts that have
independent characterizations, but there is some criterion for distinguishing
between part-whole relationships that are emergent and those that are merely
resultant. The British emergentists take this line and use additivity as the rele-
vant characterization of a resultant as opposed to an emergent property.40 The
difficulty with this view is that it seems to trivialize the notion of emergence
when quantum mechanics is brought into view, either rendering every part of
the universe emergent because it is entangled through past interactions with
everything else in the universe, or nothing emergent, because the universe is
an undivided whole that has no parts with independent characterizations. A
proper interpretation of quantum theory would seem to require grasping the
second horn of this dilemma.
Radical Emergence
The idea behind radical emergence is that only resultant wholes have con-
temporaneous parts, emergent wholes do not. Kronz and Tiehen interpret this
as Humphreys’s view. Emergent wholes are produced by fusion of entities
that can be likened to parts, but these parts cease to exist upon fusion, only
existing when the whole does not, and vice versa. An example of this sort of
thing presumably would be a nonseparable quantum state. Prior to interac-
tion, quantum “particles” might be taken to have independent existence, but
after they interact and their wavefunctions become entangled, they cease to
exist as “parts” and a new entity at the next level in the ontological hierarchy
comes into being. Again, it is hard to see on this view why there is not only
one quantum entity: the universe itself.
Dynamic Emergence (Relational Holism)

Kronz and Tiehen proclaim themselves advocates of what they call “dynamic
emergence,” which, although unacknowledged, seems clearly to be a reinven-
tion of Paul Teller’s idea of relational holism.41 Teller defines a relationally
holistic property as one in which the relevant property of the whole does not
supervene on the nonrelational properties of the relata, as for example, the
tallness of Wilt Chamberlain relative to Mickey Rooney supervenes on the
nonrelational height of each. In the Kronz-Tiehen reformulation, emergent
wholes have contemporaneous parts, but these parts cannot be characterized
independently of their respective wholes. These wholes are produced by an
388 Bruce L. Gordon
essential, ongoing interaction of their parts. Ultimately, of course, quantum

theory is going to imply that every contemporaneous part of the universe, at
least in its “material” respects, cannot in the final analysis be characterized
independently of the whole universe, though for all practical purposes we can
often treat subsystems of the universe as proximately independent.
Relational Holism and Quantum Nonlocality: A Very Holey Story

Granted that relational holism (to use Teller’s term) seems the most reason-
able description of quantum ontology, what more can be said? As Kronz
and Tiehen have noted, speaking of contemporaneous parts for nonlocal
wholes requires, in view of the relativity of simultaneity, a relativization
of contemporaneousness to reference frames. Though they do not discuss
how this is to be done, the most plausible candidate is Gordon Fleming’s
theory of hyperplane dependence,42 in which judgments of simultaneity are
relativized to hyperplanes constituted by three-dimensional temporal slices of
space-time; this is the solution appropriated by Teller (1995 and elsewhere).
The difficulty here is that the properties of a nonlocal quantum system can
be different depending on which hyperplane is in view. In some hyperplanes,
for example, the wavefunction of the system may have collapsed, while in
others this will not yet have happened. But there are an infinite number of
such hyperplanes, some of which intersect, and it will be the case at the point
of intersection that ontologically inconsistent properties are attributed to the
quantum system, for example, that it has both collapsed and not collapsed. I
take this situation to indicate that particle ontologies are incompatible with
fundamental physical theory. If we take the ontological contradiction as
a harbinger of the nonlocalizability of any so-called “particles,” then par-
ticle ontologies are not ultimately tenable because the particles don’t exist
anywhere. On the other hand, if we take the contradiction to indicate the
metaphysical necessity of an undetectable privileged reference frame, the
“particles” remain nonlocalizable,43 so the same conclusion follows. Nor is
this situation ameliorated by switching to a quantum field ontology for the
same ontological contradictions arise with respect to states of the field and
the fields themselves exhibit states of superposition of contradictory numbers
of quanta that not only render the intrinsic substantiality of the quanta impos-
sible, but also that of the field itself. For this reason and some others as well,
field ontologies are as inadequate as particle ontologies for interpreting our
most basic physical theories (relativistic quantum field theories).44
As a characterization of quantum nonlocality, therefore, while relational
holism (dynamic emergence) may be descriptively accurate and revelatory
of the challenge to ontological interpretation that quantum theory poses,
it is explanatorily vacuous. If the objection is raised that the “individual”
described by quantum theory must ultimately be the quantum system itself,

with its Hilbert Space of states, and the ontological difference between par-
ticle and field a mere matter of representation for a selected set of states, all
of which are allowed and used by quantum field theory, then the appropriate
reply is that the question of ontology is not obviated, nor is the fact of system-
atic, predictable correlation without causation. Instantaneous adjustment of
nonlocal relational wholes to local systemic changes, whether called “emer-
gence” or some other term of art, remains a flagrant violation of relativistic
causality that lacks a physical explanation and is present, if anything, to an
even greater extent in quantum field theory than quantum mechanics.45 Invok-
ing “emergence” in such contexts seems little more than a terminological
gambit to obscure things for which no adequate physical explanation exists
and for which no adequate physicalist explanation is possible. While it pays
lip service to a variety of ontological levels, the explanatory vacuity of emer-
gentist metaphysics reinforces the untenability of physicalism.
THE NULLIFICATION OF NOMOLOGICAL NECESSITY
What are the implications of all this for physical law and physicalist concep-
tions of the natural order? There are various conceptions of physical laws
that try to give an account of them as natural necessities of one variety or
another. For obvious reasons, these nomological theories are called neces-
sitarian. Alvin Plantinga has provided a cogent philosophical critique of the
role of necessity in accounts of physical law.46 Though some philosophers
have argued that natural laws are broad logical necessities similar to state-
ments like no equine mammals are mathematical propositions,47 there seems
little to no basis for this claim. If we take Coulomb’s Law of electric charges,
for instance, the fact that two like (or different) charges repel (or attract)
each other with a force proportional to the magnitude of the charges and
inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them gives no
hint of being metaphysically necessary. We can easily conceive of a different
mathematical relationship holding between the charges. This has led other
philosophers to assert that the laws of nature are contingently necessary and
to develop an account of natural laws based on this assumption.48 But quite
apart from the oxymoronic appearance of such a claim, no coherent account
of its substance has ever been put forward. One cannot just call natural laws
“contingent necessities” and expect it to be true “any more than one can have
mighty biceps just by being called ‘Armstrong,’” as David Lewis famously
quipped.49 Finally, other advocates of natural laws as physical necessities
have proposed an account of physical laws deriving from innate causal pow-
ers:50 laws of nature are grounded in the essential natures of things inherent in
390 Bruce L. Gordon
their material substance and manifested through forces or fields that express
necessary capacities or emanations from these natures and mediate or con-
strain physical interactions in a way that also is necessary. But again, it is
difficult to see why this causal power must necessarily flow from the essential
nature of that material substance. Calling it necessary or essential doesn’t
make it so; we could imagine it otherwise.
Even if these necessitarian accounts were not philosophically inadequate,
they all, without exception, fail to work in the quantum context. The essential
causal powers account and the relation among universals account both require
that physical systems and material objects objectively possess properties that
are capable of being connected together in a law-like fashion. At a minimum,
necessitarian and/or counterfactual physical law theorists have to maintain
that quantum systems, or their components, objectively possess properties
prior to measurement, whether these properties are determinate or indeter-
minate (probabilified dispositions), and that it is the objective possession of
these properties that necessitates (or renders probable) their specific behavior.
Bell’s theorem demonstrates that this assumption leads to empirically false
consequences in the case of local deterministic and local stochastic models.51
As we have also seen, this assumption either leads to an ontological contradic-
tion in the nonlocal stochastic case embodied by relational holism (dynamic
emergence), or if an undetectable privileged reference frame is invoked, suc-
cumbs to the nonlocalizability and insubstantiality of the intended possessors
of the requisite properties.52
What we are left with, therefore, is a situation in which there are no objec-
tive physical properties in which to ground necessitarian/counterfactual rela-
tions. So necessitarian theories of natural law cannot gain a purchase point in
fundamental physical theory and must be set aside. All that remains in such
a case is the so-called regularist account of natural laws, which asserts that
while there are regularities present in the phenomenology of the world on a
universal scale, there are no real laws of nature, that is, there is no necessity
that inheres in the natural relationships among things or in the natural pro-
cesses involving them. In short, nature behaves in ways we can count on, but
it does so for no discernible physical reason. This state of affairs requires an
explanation.
THE NECESSITY OF SUFFICIENCY
Before we proceed to discuss an explanation adequate to the phenomena

in question, we must address the view that some contingent events do not
require an explanation since genuine brute factuality is a possibility. In the
present context, we must confront the suggestion that brute factuality can be
attributed to the regularities of nature, that is, the view that the regularities
of nature are mere regularities that lack any explanation for the patterns they
exemplify. The patron saint of this approach is David Hume and the most
sophisticated modern articulation of it is given by David Lewis.53
In describing the regularities of our world, Lewis’s theory takes the funda-
mental relations to be spatiotemporal: relativistic distance relations that are
both space-like and time-like, and occupancy relations between point-sized
things and space-time points. Fundamental properties are then local qualities:
perfectly natural intrinsic properties of points, or of point-sized occupants
of points. Everything else supervenes on the spatiotemporal arrangement of
local qualities throughout all of history—past, present, and future—hence
“Humean supervenience.” On this view, natural regularities are simply the
theorems of axiomatic deductive systems, and the best system is the one that
strikes the optimal balance between simplicity and strength (informative-
ness). Lewis postulates this “best system” to exist as a brute fact whether we
know anything about it or not. As Plantinga points out,54 we have little con-
ception of what Lewis’s “best system” might look like and even less reason
to think that there is a uniquely “best” such system as opposed to “a multitude
of such systems each unsurpassed by any other.” We may add that Lewis’s
approach, as it stands, is inadequate to deal with quantal nonlocalizability,
physical indeterminism, and the undoing of the causal metric of space-time
in quantum gravitational theories. Furthermore, quantum-theoretic Bell cor-
relations, while nonlocally and instantaneously coincident, would have to
be understood in Lewis’s theory in terms of local properties manifesting
random values in harmony at space-like separation without any ontological
connection or explanation, everything functioning as part of an overarching
system of regularities that is in some sense optimal, but which also lacks any
explanation for the ongoing order it displays. In short, embracing Lewis’s
approach requires rejecting the principle of sufficient reason/causality (the
principle that every contingent event has an explanation) on a colossal scale.
But following Lewis’s programmatic recommendations and rejecting the
principle of sufficient reason would destroy knowledge in general and scien-
tific knowledge in particular. Why? In the case of knowledge in general, if
there were no sufficient reason why one thing happens rather than another,
our current perception of reality and its accompanying memories might be
happening for no reason at all, so the world we think we are experiencing
might not even exist. How would we know? As far as science is concerned,
if it is possible that a physical state of affairs lacks an explanation, then the
possibility that there is no explanation becomes a competing “explanation”
for anything that occurs. Since there is no objective probability and hence
no likelihood assignable to something for which there is no explanation, the
possibility that there is no explanation becomes an inscrutable competitor to
392 Bruce L. Gordon
every other proposed explanation, undermining our ability to decide whether

there is a scientific explanation for anything that happens. Denying that
every contingent event has an explanation not only destroys the possibility
of science, it opens the door to irremediable skepticism and the destruction
of knowledge in general. The principle of sufficient reason is a metaphysical
truth that we know a priori; it is a precondition of all knowledge and of the
intelligibility of the world.55
REVERSING POLARITY: THE DEPENDENCE

OF THE PHYSICAL ON THE MENTAL56
We have established that an explanation for the contingent regularities of

nature is necessary and that no explanation in terms of efficient material
causation and physical necessity is possible. What kind of explanation is
left? To begin answering this question, let’s start with the eminently reason-
able assumption that there is a way that the world is, that we can get it right
or wrong, and that science is a useful tool in helping us to get it right. In
particular, when physical theory backed by experiment demonstrates that the
world must satisfy certain formal structural constraints—for example, quan-
tizability, nonlocality as encapsulated in the Bell theorems, nonlocalizability
as indicated by the Hegerfeldt-Malament and Reeh-Schlieder theorems,
Lorentz symmetries in space-time, internal symmetries like isospin, various
conserved quantities as implied by Noether’s theorem, and so on—then this
formal feature of the world may be taken as strong evidence for a certain
metaphysical state of affairs. At a minimum, such states of affairs entail that
the structural constraints empirically observed to hold and represented by a
given theory will be preserved (though perhaps in a different representation)
by any future theoretical development; thus far structural realism.
Whether this structural realism has further ontological consequences
pertaining to the actual furniture of the world (entity realism) is a matter of
debate among structural realists. The epistemic structural realist believes that
there are epistemically inaccessible material objects forever hidden behind
the structures of physical theory and that all we can know are the structures.57
The ontic structural realist eliminates material objects completely—it is not
just that we only know structures, but rather that all that exists to be known
are the structures.58 Both these versions of structural realism are deficient,
though in different ways.
We have seen that quantum theory is incompatible with the existence of
material substances, even those of a relationally holistic sort. Given that this
is the case, the epistemic structural realist is just wrong that there is a world
of inaccessible material individuals hidden behind the structures that quantum
theory imposes upon the world. The situation would therefore seem to default
to ontic structural realism. But while the ontic structural realist is correct that
there are no material objects behind the structures, his position is deficient too
because there can be no structures simpliciter without an underlying reality
that is enstructured; we cannot build castles in the air. It would seem, then,
that we’re in a sort of catch-22 situation. The challenge to making sense of
quantum physics is to give an account of what the world is like when it has an
objective structure that does not depend on material substances. What inves-
tigations of the completeness of quantum theory have taught us, therefore, is
rather than quantum theory being incomplete, it is material reality (so-called)
that is incomplete. The realm that we call the “physical” or “material” or
“natural” is not self-sufficient but dependent upon a more basic reality that is
not physical, a reality that remedies its causal incompleteness and explains its
insubstantiality, and on which its continued existence depends.
In light of this realization, the rather startling picture that begins to seem
plausible is that preserving and explaining the objective structure of appear-
ances in light of quantum theory requires reviving a type of phenomenalism
in which our perception of the physical universe is constituted by sense-data
conforming to certain structural constraints, but in which there is no substan-
tial material reality causing these sensory perceptions. This leaves us with
an ontology of minds (as immaterial substances) experiencing and generat-
ing mental events and processes that, when sensory in nature, have a formal
character limned by the fundamental symmetries and structures revealed in
“physical” theory. That these structured sensory perceptions are not mostly
of our own individual or collective human making points to the falsity of any
solipsistic or social constructivist conclusion, but it also implies the need for
a transcendent source and ground of our experience. As Robert Adams points
out, mere formal structure is ontologically incomplete:
[A] system of spatiotemporal relationships constituted by sizes, shapes, posi-
tions, and changes thereof, is too incomplete, too hollow, as it were, to con-
stitute an ultimately real thing or substance. It is a framework that, by its very
nature, needs to be filled in by something less purely formal. It can only be a
structure of something of some not merely structural sort. Formally, rich as such
a structure may be, it lacks too much of the reality of material thinghood. By
itself, it participates in the incompleteness of abstractions. . . . [T]he reality of a
substance must include something intrinsic and qualitative over and above any
formal or structural features it may possess.59
When we consider the fact that the structure of reality in fundamental physi-
cal theory is merely phenomenological and that this structure itself is hollow
and nonqualitative, whereas our experience is not, the metaphysical objectiv-
ity and epistemic intersubjectivity of the enstructured qualitative reality of
394 Bruce L. Gordon
our experience can be seen to be best explained by an occasionalist idealism

of the sort advocated by George Berkeley or Jonathan Edwards. In the meta-
physical context of this kind of theistic immaterialism, the vera causa that
brings coherent closure to the phenomenological reality we inhabit is always
and only agent causation. The necessity of causal sufficiency is met by divine
action, for as Plantinga emphasizes:
[T]he connection between God’s willing that there be light and there being light
is necessary in the broadly logical sense: it is necessary in that sense that if God
wills that p, p occurs. Insofar as we have a grasp of necessity (and we do have a
grasp of necessity), we also have a grasp of causality when it is divine causality
that is at issue. I take it this is a point in favor of occasionalism, and in fact it
constitutes a very powerful advantage of occasionalism.60
Plantinga is right to emphasize the virtues of occasionalism, but he does

not take his argument in the idealist direction that the quantum-theoretic
evidence we have considered seems to warrant. Clearly, the philosophical
and quantum-theoretic problems for necessitarianism also prohibit a second-
ary causation account of divine action as the metaphysical basis for natural
regularities. Secondary causation requires God to have created material
substances to possess and exercise, actively or passively, their own intrinsic
causal powers. God acts in the ordinary course of nature only as a universal
or primary cause that sustains the existence of material substances and their
properties as secondary causes. On this view, material substances mediate
God’s ordinary activity in the world and function as secondarily efficient
causes in their own right. Plantinga recognizes that secondary causation
inherits many of the philosophical problems associated with necessitarian
accounts. Beyond this, however, it also inherits the quantum-theoretic prob-
lems that render necessitarianism untenable: the inherent insubstantiality
of fundamental quantum entities, the inability of emergentist accounts of
macroscopic objecthood to generate substantial material individuality and
identity, and the operative incompleteness of this reality in respect of suf-
ficient causation. In the absence of coherent material substances and physical
causality, therefore, secondary causation lacks a purchase point in fundamen-
tal physical theory. So regardless of whether God could have created a world
in which there were secondary material causes, it is evident that he did not
do so. This leaves us with an occasionalist account of natural regularities,
which in its “weak” form, as Plantinga is at pains to argue, fares no worse
than secondary causation in respect of allowing for libertarian freedom and
a resolution of the problem of evil. In fact, if we take advantage of Alfred
Freddoso’s approach to occasionalism, we can build libertarian freedom into
its definition:
God is the sole efficient cause of every state of affairs in the universe that is not
subject to the influence of freely acting creatures.61
In other words, God is the only vera causa of every state of affairs occur-
ring in “pure” nature, namely, that segment of the universe not subject to the
causal influence of creatures with libertarian freedom.
In giving an account of the ontological basis for natural regularities under
occasionalist idealism, then, the regularities of nature may be formulated
as counterfactuals of divine freedom.62 Rather than understanding God’s
activity in terms of the divine production of certain behavior in substantial
material objects, however, with the perception of the same divinely induced
in our material brains, we must instead conceptualize the creaturely experi-
ence of mental phenomena as directly communicated to finite immaterial
minds by God. So the natural regularities we interpret as “laws of nature”
are just specifications of how God would act to produce the phenomena we
experience under different complexes of conditions. More precisely, nature’s
nomological behavior should be understood in the following way: If collec-
tive phenomenological conditions C were realized, all other things being
equal—and with a certain quantum-mechanical probability—God would
cause us to experience the phenomenological state of affairs S.
On this view, then, what we take to be material objects are mere phenom-
enological structures that we are caused to perceive by God and which have
no nonmental reality. They exist and are given being in the mind of God,
who creates them, and they are perceived by our minds as God “speaks” their
reality to us. What we perceive as causal activity in nature is always and only
God communicating to us—as immaterial substantial minds whose bodies
are also phenomenological constructs—the appropriate formally structured
qualitative sensory perceptions.
A WORLD WELL LOST
That physics belies physicalism is by now quite clear. Careful consideration

of the progress of physics since 1900 reveals that the harder we have looked
at the universe’s material constitution, the more ephemeral it has gotten, until
in the final analysis we are left with a phenomenological reality that does not
emanate from a material substratum, for material substances are shown to
have no place in fundamental physical theory. The irony for the physicalist is
palpable. In seeking an explanation for how the universe works, he turns to
science and marshals his resources, restricted as they are to material objects
and processes and what can be derived from them. But as he journeys deeper
and deeper into the heart of matter, he finds that it dissolves and his whole
396 Bruce L. Gordon
worldview lacks a metaphysical foundation. Yet the phenomenological uni-

verse that constitutes his experience and ours remains, is ever so regular, and
is ever so evidently not of human making, for we do not will the experiences
we have—they come to us unbidden, sometimes welcome and sometimes not.
As we have extracted this metaphysical picture from quantum physics and
examined its implications, we have found an explanation of this surprising
state of affairs—for it requires an explanation—in an occasionalist quantum
idealism that has a strong affinity with Berkeley’s occasionalist idealism.63
When we see what the world is really like in comparison with the world
that the physicalist would give us, we understand that the scientific preten-
sions of physicalism are so far removed from reality as to warrant dismissal
as “not even wrong.” The physicalist’s world of inexplicable brute factuality
is a world well lost: rational explanations require purpose, not blind chance,
and in the final analysis that is just what fundamental physical theory gives
us. The metaphysical requirement that the order and intelligibility of the
universe have an explanation in conjunction with the absence of any tenable
physical explanation finds its only satisfaction in transcendent causality. Fun-
damental physical theory does not just reveal the mind of God to us, it reveals
to us that we live in the mind of God. It is hard to imagine a reality farther
removed from physicalism than that.
NOTES
1. There is a weaselly kind of physicalism that tries to adjust the content of the
thesis that “all is matter” again and again when a once-favored account of what it
means for something to be a material object is rendered untenable by the progress
of physical theory. The disingenuous character of this retrenchment strategy is made
plain in materialism’s confrontation with quantum physics, however, since, as we
shall see, there are no sufficient criteria by which to identify and individuate the
fundamental constituents of “material” reality in quantum theory, and no sustainable
notion (emergent or otherwise) of material substance. Bas Van Fraassen describes
the invariant attitude giving rise to the belief that all is matter as a form of “false
consciousness” (“Science, Materialism, and False Consciousness,” in Warrant in
Contemporary Epistemology: Essays in Honor of Plantinga’s Theory of Knowledge,
ed. Jonathan L. Kvanvig [Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996], 170). See
also Bruce L. Gordon, “A Quantum-Theoretic Argument against Naturalism,” in The
Nature of Nature: Examining the Role of Naturalism in Science, eds. Bruce L. Gordon
and William A. Dembski (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2011), 179–214.
2. Some philosophers and scientists who recognize that physicalism—whether
reductive or nonreductive—is a dead end, but who are still committed to evolutionary
naturalism, have adopted an immanentistic panpsychist approach to issues in the phi-
losophy of mind and the evidence for teleology in nature. This kind of panpsychism
takes mental existence as an irreducible and fundamental component of everything in
the universe and of the universe itself. For a survey of the current debate, see Gode-
hard Brüntrup and Ludwig Jaskolla, eds. Panpsychism: Contemporary Perspectives
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); see also Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos:
Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
3. For more on this see Bruce L. Gordon, “A Quantum-Theoretic Argument
against Naturalism”; Bruce L. Gordon, “The Necessity of Sufficiency: The Argument
from the Incompleteness of Nature,” in Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God: The
Plantinga Project, eds. Trent Dougherty and Jerry Walls (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2017, forthcoming); and Bruce L. Gordon, “Divine Action and the World
of Science: What Cosmology and Quantum Physics Teach Us about the Role of
Providence in Nature,” Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies, 2, no. 2 (2017):
247–298.
4. Jim Baggott, The Meaning of Quantum Theory (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1992), 1–74; Robert P. Crease and Charles C. Mann, The Second Creation:
Makers of the Revolution in 20th Century Physics (New York: Macmillan, 1986).
5. Richard P. Feynman, “Probability and Uncertainty—The Quantum-Mechani-
cal View of Nature,” The Character of Physical Law (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1965), 127–148; Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, vol. 3:
Quantum Mechanics (Reading, PA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1971).
6. C. J. Davisson, “Are Electrons Waves?” Journal of the Franklin Institute 205,
no. 5 (1928): 597–623.
7. Alyssa Ney and David Z. Albert, eds. The Wave Function: Essays on the Meta-
physics of Quantum Mechanics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
8. Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen, “Can Quantum-Mechan-
ical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?” Physical Review 47
(1935): 777–780.
9. Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, “Can Quantum-Mechanical Description,” 777.
10. Niels Bohr, “Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be
Considered Complete?” Physical Review 48 (1935): 696–702.
11. For a helpful clarification, see Hans Halvorson and Robert Clifton, “Recon-
sidering Bohr’s Reply to EPR,” Non-locality and Modality, eds. J. Butterfield and T.
Placek (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2002), 3–18.
12. See John S. Bell, “On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox,” Speakable and
Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1987 [1964]), 14–21; and John S. Bell, “On the Problem of Hidden Variables in
Quantum Mechanics,” Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, 1–13.
13. A. Aspect, P. Grangier, and G. Roger, “Experimental Tests of Realistic Theo-
ries via Bell’s Theorem,” Physical Review Letters 47 (1981): 460–467; A. Aspect,
P. Grangier, and G. Roger, “Experimental Realization of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-
Bohm Gedanken-experiment: A New Violation of Bell’s Inequalities,” Physical
Review Letters 48 (1982): 91–94; A. Aspect, J. Dalibard, and G. Roger, “Experi-
mental Tests of Bell’s Inequalities Using Time-Varying Analyzers,” Physical Review
Letters 49 (1982): 1804–1807; M. A. Rowe, D. Kielpinski, V. Meyer, C. A. Sackett,
W. M. Itano, C. Monroe, and D. J. Wineland, “Experimental Violation of a Bell’s
Inequality with Efficient Detection.” Nature 409 (2001): 791–794.
398 Bruce L. Gordon
14. John S. Bell, “Bertlmann’s Socks and the Nature of Reality,” Speakable and
Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, 139–158; Jeffrey Bub, Interpreting the Quan-
tum World (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Robert Clifton, ed.,
Perspectives on Quantum Reality: Non-Relativistic, Relativistic, and Field-Theoretic
(Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996); James T. Cushing and Ernan
McMullin, eds., Philosophical Consequences of Quantum Theory: Reflections on
Bell’s Theorem (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989); Gordon,
“A Quantum-Theoretic Argument against Naturalism,” 179–214.
15. G. C. Hegerfeldt, “Remark on Causality and Particle Localization.” Physical
Review D 10 (1974): 3320–3321; David Malament, “In Defense of Dogma: Why
There Cannot Be a Relativistic Quantum Mechanics of (Localizable) Particles,” in
Perspectives on Quantum Reality: Non-Relativistic, Relativistic, and Field-Theoretic,
ed. Robert Clifton (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996), 1–9.
16. Maria Fuwa, Shuntaro Takeda, Marcin Zwierz, Howard Wiseman, and Akira
Furusawa, “Experimental Proof of Nonlocal Wavefunction Collapse for a Single Particle
Using Homodyne Measurement,” Frontiers in Optics (Tucson, AZ: Optical Society of
America Technical Digest, paper FW2C.3, 2014), https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.7790v1.pdf.
17. Hans Halvorson and Robert Clifton, “No Place for Particles in Relativistic
Quantum Theories?” Philosophy of Science 69 (2002): 1–28.
18. Erwin Schrödinger, “Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik,”
Naturwissenschaften 23 (1935): 807–812, 823–828, and 844–849.
19. Guido Bacciagaluppi, “The Role of Decoherence in Quantum Mechanics,”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edward N. Zalta, ed. (2012), https://plato.
stanford.edu/entries/qm-decoherence/
20. Joey Lambert, “The Physics of Superconducting Quantum Interference
Devices” (2008) http://www.physics. drexel.edu/~bob/Term_Reports/Joe_Lambert_3.
pdf; see also Jim Baggott, Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the
Search for Scientific Truth (New York: Pegasus Books, 2013), 55.
21. Donald Davidson, “Mental Events,” Essays on Action and Events (Oxford:
22. Jaegwon Kim, Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays (Cam-
bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 53–78.
23. Kim, Supervenience and Mind, 60.
24. Terence Horgan, “Supervenience and Microphysics,” Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly 63 (1982): 29–43.
25. Horgan, “Supervenience and Microphysics,” 36
26. Horgan, “Supervenience and Microphysics,” 37.
27. See Arthur Fine, “Hidden Variables, Joint Probability, and the Bell Inequali-
ties,” Physical Review Letters 48 (1982): 291–295; and Arthur Fine, “Joint Distribu-
tions, Quantum Correlations, and Commuting Observables,” Journal of Mathematical
Physics 23 (1982): 1306–1310.
28. See Gordon, “Maxwell-Boltzmann Statistics and the Metaphysics of Modal-
ity,” 402–407 for a more extensive discussion of related issues.
29. Brian McLaughlin, “Emergence and Supervenience,” Intellectica 2 (1997):
25–43.
30. Jaegwon Kim, “Making Sense of Emergence,” Philosophical Studies 95
(1999): 3–36; and Jaegwon Kim, “Being Realistic about Emergence,” in The
Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion,

eds. P. Clayton and P. Davies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 189–202.
31. Timothy O’Connor and Hong Yu Wong, “The Metaphysics of Emergence,”
Nous 39 (2005): 658–678.
32. McLaughlin, “Emergence and Supervenience,” 39.
33. Kim, “Making Sense of Emergence.”
34. Barry Loewer, “Review of J. Kim, Mind in a Physical World,” Journal of Phi-
losophy 98, no. 6 (2001): 315–324.
35. Sydney Shoemaker, “Kim on Emergence,” Philosophical Studies 108 (2002):
53–63.
36. Paul Humphreys, “How Properties Emerge,” Philosophy of Science 64 (1997):
1–17.
37. Humphreys, “How Properties Emerge.”
38. Frederick Kronz and Justin Tiehen, “Emergence and Quantum Mechanics,”
Philosophy of Science 69 (2002): 324–347.
39. Kronz and Tiehen, “Emergence and Quantum Mechanics,” 344ff.
40. According to the British emergentists (see Brian McLaughlin, “The Rise and
Fall of British Emergentism,” in Emergence or Reduction? eds. A. Beckermann, J.
Kim, and H. Flohr [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992], 49–93), resultant properties are
additive, like force in Newtonian mechanics, whereas emergent properties are not.
This via negativa is taken as the definition of an emergent property and seems to be
motivated by regarding forces as fundamental, then constructing a metaphysical view
of emergence by analogy with the way that forces behave.
41. See Paul Teller “Relational Holism and Quantum Mechanics,” British Jour-
nal for Philosophy of Science 37 (1986): 71–81; Paul Teller, “Relativity, Relational
Holism, and the Bell Inequalities,” in Philosophical Consequences of Quantum The-
ory: Reflections on Bell’s Theorem, eds. J. Cushing and E. McMullin (Notre Dame,
IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), 208–223.
42. Gordon Fleming, “Nonlocal Properties of Stable Particles,” Physical Review
B 139 (1965): 963–968; Gordon Fleming, “A Manifestly Covariant Description of
Arbitrary Dynamical Variables in Relativistic Quantum Mechanics,” Journal of Math-
ematical Physics 7 (1966): 1959–1981.
43. Hans Halvorson and Robert Clifton, “No Place for Particles in Relativistic
Quantum Theories?”
44. See David Baker, “Against Field Interpretations of Quantum Field Theory,”
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60, no. 3 (2009): 585–609.
45. R. Clifton, D. V. Feldman, H. Halvorson, M. L. G. Redhead, and A. Wilce,
“Superentangled States,” Physical Review A 58, no. 1 (1998): 135–145; see also H.
Halvorson and R. Clifton, “Generic Bell Correlation between Arbitrary Local Alge-
bras in Quantum Field Theory,” Journal of Mathematical Physics 41, no. 4 (2000):
1711–1717.
46. Alvin Plantinga, “Law, Cause, and Occasionalism,” in Reason and Faith:
Themes from Swinburne, eds. Michael Bergmann and Jeffrey E. Brower (Oxford:
47. For example, Sydney Shoemaker, “Causality and Properties,” in Time and
Cause, ed. Peter van Inwagen (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1980), 109–135; Chris Swoyer,
“The Nature of Natural Laws,” Australian Journal of Philosophy 60 (1982): 203–223;
400 Bruce L. Gordon
Evan Fales, Causation and Universals (London: Routledge, 1990); and Alexander
Bird, “The Dispositionalist Conception of Law,” Foundations of Science 10, no. 4
(2005): 353–370.
48. For example, David Armstrong, What is a Law of Nature? (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1983); Fred Dretske, “Laws of Nature,” Philosophy
of Science 44 (1977): 248–268; Michael Tooley, Causation: A Realist Approach
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).
49. David Lewis, “New Work for a Theory of Universals,” Australasian Journal of
Philosophy 61 (1983): 166.
50. For example, R. Harré and E. H. Madden, Causal Powers: A Theory of Natural
Necessity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975); J. Bigelow and R. Pargetter. Science and
Necessity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
51. John S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, 1–21;
Michael Redhead, Incompleteness, Nonlocality and Realism: A Prolegomenon to the
Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 71–118; Arthur
Fine, “Correlations and Physical Locality,” in P. Asquith and R. Giere, eds., PSA
1980, vol. 2 (East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association, 1981), 535–562.
52. As an aside, it would be a mistake to think this problem could be solved by
appropriating the nonlocal deterministic model associated with the de Broglie-Bohm
theory (see Katherine Bedard, “Material Objects in Bohm’s Interpretation,” Phi-
losophy of Science 66 (1999): 221–242; and Michael Dickson, “Are There Material
Objects in Bohm’s Theory?”).
53. David Lewis, Counterfactuals (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1973); Lewis, “New Work for a Theory of Universals,” 343–377; David Lewis,
“Humean Supervenience Debugged,” Mind 103 (1994): 473–490.
54. Plantinga, “Law, Cause, and Occasionalism,” 130.
55. For an extended defense of the principle of sufficient reason along these lines,
see Alexander Pruss, The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
56. This section relies on Gordon, “The Necessity of Sufficiency” and Gordon,
“Divine Action and the World of Science.”
57. John Worrall, “Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds?” Dialectica 43
(1989): 99–124; Michael Redhead, From Physics to Metaphysics (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1995); Tian Yu Cao, Conceptual Developments of 20th
Century Field Theories (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Tian Yu
Cao, “Structural Realism and the Interpretation of Quantum Field Theory,” Synthese 136
(2003): 3–24; Tian Yu Cao, “Appendix: Ontological Relativity and Fundamentality—Is
QFT the Fundamental Theory?” Synthese 136 (2003): 25–30; Tian Yu Cao, “Can We
Dissolve Physical Entities into Mathematical Structures?” Synthese 136 (2003): 57–71.
58. James Ladyman, “What is Structural Realism?” Studies in the History and
Philosophy of Science 29 (1998): 409–424; Steven French, “Models and Mathematics
in Physics: The Role of Group Theory,” From Physics to Philosophy, ed. J. Butterfield
and C. Pagonis (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 187–207.
59. Robert Adams, “Idealism Vindicated,” in Persons: Human and Divine,
eds. Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007), 40.
60. Plantinga, “Law, Cause, and Occasionalism,” 137.

61. Alfred Freddoso, “Medieval Aristotelianism and the Case against Secondary
Causation in Nature,” in Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of
Theism, ed. Thomas V. Morris (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 79–83.
62. Del Ratzsch, “Nomo(theo)logical Necessity,” Faith and Philosophy 4, no. 4
(1987): 383–402; Plantinga, “Law, Cause, and Occasionalism,” 126–144.
63. I arrived at an earlier version of this occasionalist quantum idealism about
twenty years ago, but it is encouraging to see a burgeoning interest in and advocacy
of Berkeleyan occasionalist idealism by a variety of Christian philosophers and theo-
logians. See, for example, Joshua Farris, S. Mark Hamilton, and James S. Speigel,
eds., Idealism and Christianity, Volume 1: Idealism and Christian Theology (New
York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016); and Steven B. Cowan and James S. Spiegel,
eds., Idealism and Christianity, Volume 2: Idealism and Christian Philosophy (New
York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016).
Amstrong, David M. What is a Law of Nature? Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, 1983.
Castellani, Elena, ed. Interpreting Bodies: Classical and Quantum Objects in Modern
Physics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Davisson, C.J. “Are Electrons Waves?” Journal of the Franklin Institute 205, no. 5
(1928): 597–623.
Dretske, Fred. “Laws of Nature.” Philosophy of Science 44 (1977): 248–268.
Fujita, S. “On the Indistinguishability of Classical Particles.” Foundations of Physics
21 (1991): 439–457.
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Macroscopic Systems.” Physical Review D 34 (1986): 470–491.
Gordon, Bruce L. “Divine Action and the World of Science: What Cosmology and
Quantum Physics Teach Us about the Role of Providence in Nature.” Journal of
Biblical and Theological Studies 2, no. 2 (2017): 247–298.
———. “Scientific Explanations Are Not Limited to Natural Causes,” In Problems in
Philosophy: An Introduction to the Major Debates on Knowledge, Reality, Values
and Government, edited by Steven B. Cowan. New York: Bloomsbury, forthcom-
ing, 2018.
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the Role of Naturalism in Science. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2011.
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ization Schemes in Relativistic Quantum Field Theory.” Philosophy of Science 68
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ken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 1975.
Hegerfeldt, G.C. “Remark on Causality and Particle Localization.” Physical Review
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402 Bruce L. Gordon
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Press, 1993.
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Chapter 20
Reflections on Christian Physicalism

by a Veteran Antiphysicalist
Howard Robinson
When I became a graduate student in 1967, I was not sure whether to work on
free will or the mind-body problem. In both cases I was influenced by a desire
to defend what I believed to be the Christian understanding of what it is to be a
human being, as against what I feared was the nihilistic conception that followed
from scientific materialism. In my second term, I fixed on the mind-body prob-
lem. I was worried that a materialist account of the human mind would leave
the human soul, like Blake’s Urizen, drowning in the waters of materialism. (I
asked to have Blake’s painting on the cover of both my books on physicalism,
in 1982 and 2016, but in both cases the publisher said this was not possible!)
When I came to grips with J. J. C. Smart’s foundational essay, ‘Sensations
and brain processes’ and, slightly later, with David Armstrong’s magisterial
A Materialist Theory of the Mind I was both shocked and relieved, because
the cost of their materialism was to deny that, in being conscious, we had any
positive conception of what was in our consciousness; our knowledge of our
own lived being was wholly topic neutral. Much as I admired and became
good friends with, David Armstrong, this seemed to me to be a very desper-
ate strategy. In the early 70s, thanks mainly to the influence of Rom Harre’s
classes on Boscovitch, I began to think that the concept of matter was much
more problematic than that of consciousness. I also began to work on the
nature of universals with a view to relating this to the nature of thought. My
consequent belief that human beings must be semantic and not merely syn-
tactic engines was strengthened by John Searle’s powerful and lucid Chinese
room argument: it was clear that materialist theories were as hopeless about
thought as they were about consciousness, and even about materiality itself.
The upshot of all this is that my instinctive reaction to Christian material-
ism is that it is both an unnecessary sell-out and a stab in the back; if correct,
it threatens to render inconsequential everything I had thought worth doing in
403
404 Howard Robinson
philosophy. But as it seems obvious to me that materialism is no good, quite

apart from religion, what is going on?
Outside of philosophy, but including among many theologians, there is the
negative word-magic associated with “dualism.” Dualism is associated with
the heretical Manichean idea that there two “gods,” one of good and the other
of evil. It is, less extremely, associated with the Platonic idea that the body is
a bad thing, without which in the next life we will be better off. These views
are, of course, heretical. Also, an unthought-out, sloganized emphasis on the
“incarnational” nature of Christianity is used to shame anyone who is tempted
to think Christianity requires dualism.
Among philosophers, I think there are two main concerns. Some Christian
philosophers are convinced by the arguments for physicalism, at least to
the extent of being impressed by the success of the natural sciences and not
wanting to be dependent on a “God of the gaps” claim that inserts religion
into the spaces science has not yet conquered. More modestly, there might
be the feeling that the truth of the religion should not turn on any particular
philosophical doctrine. If physicalism can give an adequate account of human
characteristics, then Christianity can accommodate it, as well as it can accom-
modate any other philosophical anthropology.
The conditional nature of the last sentence is of course important. One
reason why a Christian might resist materialism is the belief that materialism
involves “the abolition of man,” that is, the downgrading or elimination of
everything that John McDowell, for example, classifies as “second nature,”
that is, of all distinctively human forms of psychological life, including all
that is normative, so that it eliminates, rather than adequately accommodates,
what is special to human nature.
Among protestant analytical philosophers, the tendency toward material-
ism usually has something to do with the influence of Peter van Inwagen:
among Catholics, a certain understanding of Aristotelian hylomorphism is
usually to blame.
Van Inwagen’s form of materialism seems to rest on his particular style of
sparse ontology, and not fundamentally on issues that derive specifically from
the philosophy of mind. He affirms that the “only way for a thing to avoid
being an abstract object is for it to be a substance.”1 In particular, properties
are abstract objects. In fact, van Inwagen treats them like predicates, because
he says that they are true of the things that have them.
[Certain] properties are, to be sure, mental properties, but that only means that
if they are true of or belong to something at a moment, that thing is thinking or
feeling at that moment. A parallel definition of “physical property” would be:
a property is physical if its being true of something implies that that thing is a
physical substance. . . . To call a property physical is not to speak of its nature
but of the natures of the things it could possibly be true of.2
Reflections on Christian Physicalism by a Veteran Antiphysicalist 405
This leads van Inwagen to what one might describe as an ontologically mini-
mal materialism. It is uncontroversial that human beings have or are bodies
composed of atoms etc. This, by van Inwagen’s definition, makes them physi-
cal substances.3 Properties, being abstract are neither mental nor physical, so,
though both mental and physical properties are true of humans, the only sub-
stance present is a physical one. I call this position an ontologically minimal
materialism because it also rules out standard forms of materialism, such as
the identity theory: van Inwagen does not like events or states and thinks that
it makes no sense to identify the being true of one property of an object with
the being true of another.4
It is obvious that most of the metaphysics behind this account is highly
contentious, quite independently of how it relates to the mind-body prob-
lem. It ignores the fact that the ontological category to which an object
belongs, depends on the kind of properties it possesses. Atoms are physical
because they possess certain kinds of third-personally available properties,
and not ones accessible only from a first-person perspective. It is not that
these properties are physical because they belong to substances anteriorly
or independently deemed to be physical, rather that something is physical
in virtue of possessing the appropriate properties. Something that possesses
mental properties, without a reductive understanding of the same (which van
Inwagen does not favor) is not, therefore, a straightforwardly physical thing.
But this is not the most contentious aspect of his sparse ontology. In Quinean
fashion, he seems to deny that there are any truthmakers for the attribution
of properties to a substance—the job usually thought to be done by property
instances or tropes, which he claims to find unintelligible ideas.5 So, for van
Inwagen, its being true of x that it is F is basic, without there being anything
about x that makes this true. I cannot understand how there can fail to be that
about a thing which makes appropriate the attribution of each of the various
predicates true of it. These truthmakers are not abstract objects but spatiotem-
porally located features of the concrete object.
There is a general point about formal ontology here. There are many
philosophers who think that one needs only particulars and universals, and
nothing corresponding to property instances or tropes. Armstrong, whose in
re theory is quite different from van Inwagen’s, nevertheless denies that his
theory requires no more than universals and particulars. In fact, all theories
need a tertium quid which expresses the fact that a certain particular and a
certain property have come together at a particular time: the mere existence
of tallness and Fred is not enough to constitute Fred’s being tall. Aristotle,
probably, and the Aristotelian tradition certainly, spoke of individualized
forms as being in this role, and this jargon can be taken to be equivalent to
the more modern notion of a property instance. For Plato, the third factor is
the participation of the individual in the form, and for Armstrong an ontology
406 Howard Robinson
of states of affairs is introduced to express the idea of the coming together at

a particular place and time of the particular and the property. All these ideas
involve the presence of the universal in the concrete state of affairs. This is
what grounds the true predication of a term to the particular. Even van Inwa-
gen cannot avoid talking of the individual possessing the property—again a
third factor. That he (and other analytic philosophers) seems to conflate this
with a predicate’s being true of an object no doubt owes something to the
Fregean tradition’s unfortunate use of “concept to signify a property or uni-
versal: concepts apply to objects, just as predicates are true of them, whereas
properties actually belong to the objects that possess therm.
Without his peculiarly sparse ontology, van Inwagen would not have the
resources to describe himself as a materialist, so, in a sense, he is not a mate-
rialist according to the usual standards of the mind-body debate, carried on
within the normal metaphysical framework.
Catholic flirtation with materialism comes via the conception of the soul as
the form of the body. How to understand this expression and whether it is, as
Bernard Williams characterizes it, “a polite form of materialism,” has been
controversial ever since the first commentators on the De Anima. It is often
presented as a tertium quid between materialism and dualism, but usually,
in the modern period, with the emphasis that it is not a form of dualism, but
a form of “non-reductive naturalism.”6 I have argued elsewhere that Aristo-
tle—and consequently St. Thomas—are firmly dualistic in their theory of the
intellect and so of the human soul itself.7 The problem with hylomorphism in
general is that I think that it is complacent to think that it can be preserved
as a metaphysical theory independently of its role in scientific explanation,
which latter, few if any modern philosophers would want to defend. It was
fashionable during the “ordinary language” period of philosophy to say that
Aristotle’s four causes were not causes in the modern sense, but simply four
different forms of explanation, and that the modern sense corresponded to
Aristotle’s efficient cause. As science concerns only this kind of cause and
the others are just different kinds of explanation, science and the general
metaphysical scheme cannot come into conflict. This would mean that the
distribution of material stuff in the universe could be “closed under physics”
and, as long as some explanatory purpose was served by saying what things
are for (teleological explanation), what sorts of things they are (formal cause)
and what things are made of (material cause) then the Aristotelian categories
can retain their validity. I have argued elsewhere that it is important that,
for Aristotle and Aquinas, there is no “bottom up” science that definitively
describes the distribution of material stuff around the universe; appeal to
substantial form is essential for that and that is what gives form metaphysical
significance; it actively organizes appropriate matter.8 And in the case of the
human soul, this organizing principle is immaterial. It is possible to accept
Reflections on Christian Physicalism by a Veteran Antiphysicalist 407
this last statement—and this is a form of mind-body dualism—but the prior-

ity of “top down” explanation that is entailed by a general hylomorphism is
incompatible with modern science.9
I have said nothing about the vexed question of materialism and the resur-
rection. Trenton Merricks entertains the idea that intermittent existence is
logically possible and that identity across such intermittent existence might
simply be stipulated by God. The idea Merricks entertains would seem to
imply that God could resurrect two duplicates of you and then decide which
one to deem to be you. This does not seem to be a satisfactory solution. It
would seem unreasonable to think that complex physical things in general
have no identity over and above the appropriate kind of continuity, yet to hold
that there could be any content to a divine stipulation. There at least needs
to be an “extra fact” available to constitute the identity. The only way I can
see how this could be so is if the self is a simple immaterial entity. This is,
indeed, Richard Swinburne’s view, and he agrees that intermittent existence
is possible, but thinks that the sameness is a matter of the bare identity of
this simple immaterial substance, not of divine convention. I must admit that
I find the notion of intermittent existence problematic and have argued that
apparent intermittent existence, as might be said to occur in periods of ordi-
nary unconsciousness, not just at death, can only be reconciled with identity
by putting the self fundamentally outside of time.10 This, of course, also
requires that it be nonphysical. Ordinary time is a parameter of the physical
world and things that do not operate in just the way standard physical objects
behave might stand in a looser relation to it.
These reflections might seem to suggest that I find Christian (or any other
kind of) materialism entirely unmotivated. But that is not so. The desire to
find a unified conception of the world—a sort of monism—that integrates
science seems to me to be deeply natural. The monism that I favor—a form
of Berkelian idealism—might seem to do that, but it is not so simple. The
problem of embodiment remains, in the form of the difficulty of relating the
way certain things are best explained in natural scientific terms with those
things that must be explained in terms of reason, norms, and consciousness.
John McDowell is not alone in having failed to harmonize what he calls the
first and second natures of the universe.
Christian materialism might be motivated, but I remain convinced that,
however it is dressed up, all materialisms remain firmly opposed to any
spiritual view of the world—whether one construes “spiritual” in an ethical
or metaphysical sense. It seems to me that Christian philosophers and theolo-
gians should be united in their opposition to all forms of materialism. Chris-
tian thinkers should direct their energies to articulating better the metaphysics
behind human action and agency, and the nature of human thought and under-
standing, in ways that free these phenomena from the grasp of a dehumanized
408 Howard Robinson
or mechanistic science. They should also beware of feeling too obligated to

follow the fashions of secular fashion in philosophy and more generally in
the intellectual climate. It should also go without saying that this does not
involve anything like a direct clash with the hard sciences, as the revival of
“first cause” arguments and fine-tuning based versions of design arguments
amply show. There is currently a crisis in materialistic thought—as is shown
by the growing fashion for panpsychism among even some leading nonreli-
gious philosophers of mind, such as Tom Nagel, Galen Strawson, and David
Chalmers. This presents an opportunity for Christian thinkers to put forward
positive accounts of human nature that do not simply involve putting oneself
outside the mainstream of contemporary thought, as used to be the case. We
can prophecy against the age while picking up on leads that current secular
thought is handing over for our exploitation!
NOTES
1. Peter van Inwagen, “A Materialist Ontology of the Human Person,” in Persons

Human and Divine, eds. Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman (Oxford: Oxford
2. Van Inwagen, 211–212.
3. Van Inwagen, 209.
4. Van Inwagen, 208–212.
5. Van Inwagen, 202.
6. See, for example, Anthony Kenny, Aquinas on Mind (New York: Routledge,
1993) and William Jaworski, Structure and Metaphysics: How Hylomorphism Solves
the Mind-Body Problem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
7. See Howard Robinson, “Aristotelian Dualism,” Oxford Studies in Ancient
Philosophy, 1 (1983): 123–44 and “Form and the Immateriality of the Intellect from
Aristotle to Aquinas,” in Aristotle and the Later Tradition, eds. H. Blumenthal and
H. Robinson, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Supplementary Volume (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1991), 207–226.
8. Howard Robinson, “Modern hylomorphism and the reality and causal power
of structure; a skeptical investigation,” Res Philosophica, 91 (2014): 203–214.
9. This is strictly true only if one takes science naturalistically. Artifacts, for
example, clocks work mechanistically and have parts, such as springs and cogwheels,
that only exist because of the contribution they make to the artifact as a whole. If one
thought of the universe as a whole as made by God for purposes realized at the macro
level and the atoms there as the chosen way of constructing these things, then a sort
of reconciliation of science and Aristotelian categories could be made. It is interest-
ing that artifacts are not true—or, at least, paradigm—substances for Aristotle, but are
pre-eminent illustrations of the features substances are supposed to possess.
10. Howard Robinson, “The Self and Time,” in Persons, Human and Divine,
55–83.
Afterword
Gerald O’Collins
This collection challenges not only radical forms of physicalism that deny
“conscious awareness, subjective experience, beliefs, and desires,” but also
more moderate versions that “acknowledge the reality of consciousness,
belief, desires, and so on, but identify these with bodily states , processes, or
properties that we have as physical, living human animals” (Charles Talia-
ferro). The whole work shows how philosophy inspired by faith remains
healthy and strong in defending appropriately Christian dualism.
Paul Gavrilyuk objects successfully to the insufficiently examined but
conventional wisdom about ancient Greek thought endorsing a monolithic
soul-body dualism. J. P. Moreland develops his convincing arguments that
the appearance and unity of consciousness cannot be explained by strict phys-
icalism. It is the soul, a single “uncomposed” mental substance, that accounts
for the unity of consciousness. Felicitous expressions turn up repeatedly in
his chapter: for instance, “inseparable parts get their existence and identity
from the whole of which they are parts.” Moreland rightly insists that “the
first-person perspective is not a property persons have, it is the thing persons
are” (emphasis added).
In “Physicalism, Divine Eternality, and Life Everlasting,” R. Keith Loftin
and R. T. Mullins’s treatment of the postresurrection experience of life ever-
lasting encompassing but exceeding our preresurrection experience of life
everlasting is helpful. Creation is redeemed, not annihilated and replaced.
There is continuity in discontinuity. This chapter argues not only against a
timeless life after death but also against a timeless God. Does God experience
succession in the divine life and change through the exercise of the divine
will? Are souls (understood as immaterial minds) persons, or are they rather
what Leftow has called “identity-conferring constituents of persons” (the
Thomist view)?
409
410 Afterword
Like other chapters, Angus Menuge’s “Physicalism and our Knowledge

of God,” gives rise to much fruitful thought: for instance, his conclusion that
“immaterial souls are more apt to possess divine concepts to know God.” As
he comments, “this is one way in which we clearly reflect the image of God:
we alone among creatures are made so that we can come to know God.”
Given my remit to write a brief afterword, I am precluded from engaging
with substantial discussion on these matters, and for the most part can only
record formulations that caught my attention and invited further attention and
scrutiny.
Taliaferro’s “Physicalism and the Death of Christ” takes up a traditional,
more Eastern than Western belief about what happened after the death of
Christ: “the harrowing of hell.” But, before doing so, he needs to reflect on
what happened when the second person of the Trinity became embodied as a
finite human being. Taliaferro endorses what he calls “integrative dualism,”
according to which, “in normal, healthy conditions, the person [the soul] and
the body function as a singular unity.” In the case of the incarnation, “the
person Jesus breathes with his lungs, feels by means of his nervous system
and brain, is nourished by food, sees with his eyes, hears with his ears . . . and
undergoes events and acts in and as the functional unity of Jesus qua embod-
ied person.” Thus, such an embodiment involves “taking on fully the many
ways in which our mental states are intertwined with our physical states.”
These remarks are insightful. He does not have much difficulty in dealing
with caricatures of dualism that have become common in the aftermath of
Gilbert Ryle’s dismissal of what Ryle called “the ghost in the machine.”
Brandon Rickabaugh’s dismantling of objections to bodily resurrection
that have been brought against those who hold a mind-body dualism is worth
note. He remains somewhat skeptical about the need for bodily identity to
ensure that it is the same person who will be gloriously raised from the dead.
Yet the “bodily soul view” that he shares with C. Stephen Evans means that
the body is “the mode in which we manifest our presence in the world and
exercise our agency and relationality.” The soul is “both the internal efficient
cause and teleological guide for the internal structure and the development
of the body” (emphasis added). In resurrection the soul will undergo its own
transformation, when the whole person, body and soul, is recovered and
transformed. Although Rickabaugh never mentions my bodily, ensouled his-
tory, I like to think that his view is not that far from understanding resurrec-
tion as a “reassembly,” redemption, and glorification of a such an ensouled,
bodily history.
I welcome this valuable work in collaboration that has set itself to expound
and develop dualism against various forms of physicalism.
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Index
anhypostasis, 121, 163–65, 167–68 Constantinople, 20, 158, 161, 163, 165,
animalism, xiv, 60, 62–3, 111–12, 124, 296
127, 182, 183, 259, 282, 285, 342 constitution, xiv, xviii, 118, 121, 123,
anticriterialism, 110, 286 133, 180, 234, 257, 259–60, 329,
Aquinas, Thomas, xvi, 27, 31–38, 45, 359–65
76, 187, 217, 236, 246, 247, 274, Cooper, John W., xiv, xv, xvii, 118, 319
281, 284, 301, 306, 325, 346, 406 Corcoran, Kevin, xviii, 81, 88–9, 118,
Aristotle, 3–4, 6, 51, 54, 224, 236, 246, 123, 128, 133, 217, 286, 296,
306, 405, 406 309–10, 359–62, 365
Augustine, 3, 7, 15–20, 103–4, 132,
217, 234, 235, 246, 247, 303, 306, Dretske, Fred, 83, 228n21
329, 344, 346
emergentism, xv, 69, 75, 81–82, 89,
Baker, Lynne Rudder, xviii, 81, 83, 87, 118, 131–32, 218, 225, 232, 242–
118, 127, 128, 180, 189, 217, 297, 43, 265, 354, 383–89
298, 300, 302–4, 361, 363, 364, enhypostasis, 121, 124, 163–65, 168
365 eternality. See eternity
Barth, Karl, 2, 136, 139–48 eternal life. See everlasting life
Bayne, Tim, 55, 56–67 eternity, 80, 91, 99–112, 125, 138, 142,
Berkouwer, G. C., 145 144–46, 202, 214, 330
Brown, Warren, xvii, 232–46, 249 everlasting life, 13, 99, 100–2, 107–12,
143, 145, 192, 202, 204, 226, 243,
Chalcedon, 20, 120, 124, 153, 158, 159, 276, 280, 299–300, 321, 323–24,
160–64, 176, 296, 331 326, 329–30, 333, 335
Chalmers, David, 55–57, 195, 236, 408
consciousness, xiv, xv, 1, 86, 154, 166– falling elevator model, 286, 288n3
67, 176, 178, 182, 203, 236–37, fission, 63, 118, 127–29, 131–32, 257–
242–43, 246, 342–43, 355, 363, 61, 266, 334, 356
403, 407, 409; four-dimensionalism, 104, 108–10,
unity of, xx, 43–69, 87, 241 257–58, 260–62, 277, 279
429
430 Index
fusion, 128–29, 132, 258, 263, 385–87 neuroscience, xvi, xvii–xviii, 29, 31,
44–48, 68, 82, 195–97, 198, 204,
gnosticism, xvii, 1, 3, 233–35, 325, 327 207, 231–32, 235–37, 240–41,
Green, Joel B., xviii, xxii, 125–26, 217, 248, 276, 342
225–26 Nicene, xiv, xix, 20, 30, 331
Hasker, William, 57, 59, 65, 67 O’Connor, Timothy, 118, 131–32, 384
holy Saturday, xiv, xx, 117–34, 137–48
hope (eschatological), ix, 100–2, 109– panpsychism, 3, 237, 408
10, 129, 140, 142, 145, 260, 282, Plato, 1–18, 20, 33, 92, 154, 158, 235,
321, 330 320–21, 322, 324–27, 351, 404,
Hudson, Hud, 118, 189, 257–66 405
hylomorphism/hylemorphism, xx, 32, Platonists. See Plato
183–84, 187, 280–87, 301, 329, problem of the many, 262–66
342, 404, 406–7
quantum phenomena, 226, 251n36,
image of God, xvii, 12, 19–20, 92, 217, 371–96
231, 273, 320–21, 324, 326, 327, quantum physics. See quantum
359, 362–63, 365, 368, 410 phenomena
incarnation, 75, 100, 107, 119–21,
125, 133, 137–48, 153, 155–69, resurrection, ix, x, xiv, xv, xviii, xix, xx,
177–80, 185, 275, 301, 330–31, 2, 6, 15, 19, 37, 43, 101, 117–18,
410 120–33, 138, 143–44, 146–47,
intermediate state, xv, xviii, 37, 43, 247, 257–61, 266, 271, 274–82,
117–34, 260, 271, 274–87, 298, 285–87, 295–311, 319–25, 328–
319–35 35, 352, 407;
intentionality, 2, 18, 48, 51, 63–64, 67, of Jesus, 75, 117, 119, 122, 133, 138–
81–82, 92, 178, 181, 214, 217–25, 39, 142–47, 185–87, 275
343, 355, 363 Robinson, Howard, 234, 297, 403
Kim, Jaegwon, xviii, 43, 342, 378–79, Shoemaker, David, 351–58, 361
384–85 simulacrum, xviii, 123, 259, 286
sin, x, xix, 13, 16, 19, 101, 119, 120,
Lazarus, 8, 126, 133, 185, 323–24 121, 125, 187, 190–92, 204–07,
libertarian freedom, 47–51, 60, 69, 214–16, 235, 277, 299–300, 308,
197–99, 394–95 322–23, 326, 330, 335, 341–49
spacetime worm, 108–9, 258–59, 277,
Merricks, Trenton, xviii, xix, 118, 130, 279
153–57, 160, 162, 168, 189, 286, Strawn, Brad, xvii, 232–49
297–300, 303, 305–9, 407 Swinburne, Richard, 63, 91, 154, 234,
Moreland, J. P., xx, 33, 43, 82, 95, 238, 297, 301, 304, 346, 348, 352–53,
306, 409 407
Murphy, Nancey, xvii, 17, 29, 31, 33,
44–46, 81, 118, 131, 189, 217–19, Taliaferro, Charles, 43, 175, 234, 236,
222, 224, 226, 240 297, 301, 341, 409, 410
Index 431
temporal parts, 104, 108–9, 257–61, van Inwagen, Peter, xviii, 18, 31, 118,
277, 279–80 123, 128, 177, 178, 180, 189, 197,
theandric union, 120–21, 126, 259, 286, 309, 352, 404–6
128, 134
two sons worry, 153, 160–69 Willard, Dallas, 222, 233, 235, 238, 296
About the Contributors
Thomas Atkinson teaches in the Department of Philosophy at the University

of Liverpool.
John W. Cooper is professor of philosophical theology at Calvin Theological

Seminary.
Marc Cortez is associate professor of theology at Wheaton College.
C. Stephen Evans is University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at

Baylor University.
Joshua R. Farris is assistant professor of theology at Houston Baptist

University.
Paul L. Gavrilyuk is Aquinas Chair in Theology and Philosophy at the

University of St. Thomas.
Bruce L. Gordon is associate professor of the history and philosophy of

science at Houston Baptist University.
Matthew J. Hart is a doctoral candidate at the University of Liverpool.
R. Keith Loftin is associate professor of philosophy and humanities at

Scarborough College and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
433
434 About the Contributors
Jonathan J. Loose is senior lecturer in philosophy and psychology, and

director of learning and teaching at Heythrop College, University of London.
Thomas H. McCall is professor of biblical and systematic theology at Trinity

Evangelical Divinity School.
Jason McMartin is associate professor of theology at Rosemead School of

Psychology and Talbot School of Theology, Biola University.
Angus Menuge is professor and chair of philosophy at Concordia University.
J. P. Moreland is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School

of Theology.
R. T. Mullins is research fellow and director of communications for the

Logos Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology at the University of
St. Andrews.
Gerald O’Collins was, for thirty-three years, professor at the Gregorian

University Rome and now teaches at Australian Catholic University and is
research fellow at the University of Divinity Melbourne, Australia.
Brandon Rickabaugh is a doctoral candidate at Baylor University.
Howard Robinson is University Professor in Philosophy at Central

European University.
R. Scott Smith is professor of philosophy and ethics at Biola University.
Charles Taliaferro is professor of philosophy and chair of the Department

of Philosophy at St. Olaf College.
James T. Turner, Jr. teaches Christian studies at Anderson University in

South Carolina.

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Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB

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Joshua: To John Cooper, for his spirited theological

1 The Incorporeality of the Soul in Patristic Thought 1

9 Physicalism and the Death of Christ 175

perceived or real) of the various versions of dualism. And some systematic

A BRIEF STATE OF THE ART: WHY PHYSICALISM FAILS?

physicalists agree that no explanations of mental phenomena require appeal

“Philosophical and especially theological understandings, to the extent that

Similarly, philosopher of psychology Daniel N. Robinson pushes against any

One common motivation in the biblical and theological literature toward

theological matters as spiritual formation and the mission of the Church in

out (for example, as a hylomorphist, a Thomist, a Cartesian, a Berkeleyan).

1. J. P. Moreland helpfully uses this term to describe the physicalism movement

The Incorporeality of the

Most premodern thinkers, both philosophers and theologians, could wonder

Dennett’s “spectral puppeteer” is a variation on Gilbert Ryle’s descrip-

Barth’s categorical judgment was generally shared by his contemporaries,

were also quite critical of ontological dualism of the kind propounded by

THE SOUL IN GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT

of relative incorporeality of the soul in relation to the body is not foreign to

Aristotle postulates a correspondence between the first principles of a given

However, Stoic pantheistic corporealism was not as straightforwardly reduc-

such monolithic philosophical view was on offer in late antiquity. In fact, a

PATRISTIC AUTHORS BEFORE ORIGEN

Origen of Alexandria considers the question of the incorporeality of God

The Alexandrian theologian acknowledges that in the absence of an explicit

conjunction of propositions about the (in)corporeality of God and of the soul

1. God is corporeal, the soul is incorporeal.

nature.27 Tertullian subsequently proceeds to dismantle the arguments of the

it is a part of the divine mind.32 In contrast to Platonism, Christianity teaches

not sufficient for the mind to be an accident or epiphenomenon of the body,

Augustine is often portrayed as the main culprit who infected biblical

If every substance, or essence, or—if that which exists somehow in itself is

Augustine’s definition of the body is designed to prevent confusion over the

Whatever the undeniable difficulties of Augustine’s system, the caricature

The Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed draws on Colossians 1:16, describing

a suitable metaphysical framework for human freedom, interiority, awareness

1. Daniel C. Dennett, Freedom Evolves (New York: Viking, 2003), 1.

13. Aristotle, De anima, 1.2.403b–404b.

28. Tertullian, De anima, 7.

55. Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurrectione, in Gregorii Nysseni De anima et

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

Aristotle. De anima. Trans. J. S. Smith. In Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 1: The

Daley, Brian E. “Incorporeality and ‘Divine Sensibility’: The Importance of De Prin-

Christian physicalism has not had a time-honored history. No ecumenical

dualism). I will do this by highlighting several points of agreement between

(P) every instantiated property, F, is necessitated by, and not metaphysically

Here are some examples of instantiated properties. Being made of aluminium

This, of course, raises the question “what is a physical property?”6 This is

(LP) every property, F, instantiated by a human person is necessitated by, and

It will be sufficient for our purposes to understand a “Christian” to be

THE MEDIEVAL DIVINES AND MEDIEVAL

The “medieval divines” consists of a wide variety of scholars, to name a few:

1 The Incorporeality of the Soul in Patristic Thought 1

9 Physicalism and the Death of Christ 175