The blog of Dr Glenn Andrew Peoples on Theology, Philosophy, and Social Issues

Dust ‘n Breath: The Bible and the mind-body question, part 1

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This might surprise some people, but embracing a biblical worldview gives us reasons to be mind-body materialists rather than dualists.

I first rejected mind-body dualism not because of any sort of scientific scepticism but because of what I started to see in the Bible when I started looking.1 For what it’s worth, I think other Christians should do the same.

When some Christians first consider the possibility that human beings don’t have immaterial, immortal souls (i.e. immaterial souls that carry on living when the body dies), they are concerned that if they give up believing in souls (as they currently see them) then they would be somehow compromising with unbelief or “naturalism.” Unfortunately this fear is only encouraged by some who I think should know better, academics who want to assure the faithful that really they had better stay away from this point of view because it “derives its vitality from naturalism” (whatever that turn of phrase is supposed to mean). I’ve commented on this in the past, and it’s a shame that some proponents of dualism seem to engage in such poisoning of the well.

From a pastoral perspective I see this as not only mistaken but dangerous. There is a parallel here to the “Young Earth Creationist” position. Some of the defenders of that view – the view that the age of the earth is measured only in the thousands of years and that evolution on a “macro” level, leading from species that no longer exist to species that now exist with common ancestry across species is a fundamentally mistaken model – have promoted this view as the only viable option for any sincere Christian. They have encouraged people to think that to reject this view is tantamount to spiritual treachery, compromising with unbelief. When young earth creationism has been given up, so the narrative goes, a central truth has been given up, calling into question the Gospel itself. The risk, of course, is that if anyone who was raised under such teaching ever encounters and accepts another point of view (as I see it, a point of view more closely connected to reality), they will feel as though something central to their faith has been lost. Their whole thought world may collapse, calling into question the Christian faith. Disillusionment follows.

The same is true, at least potentially, of the mind-body issue. If a young Christian thinker is bombarded with the assumption that dualism is the view that takes the supernatural seriously and a materialist view of human beings (which I will now just call “materialism”) is not just mistaken, but constitutes the abandonment of a supernatural worldview (it is, after all, a view based on “naturalism,” they are told), then two things follow. In the first place their thinking about human beings will be terribly skewed, for they will always attempt to reach conclusions compatible with dualism, and in the second place they will view any evidence that favours materialism (if they are willing to hear it) as evidence for naturalism – the view that there is no God and nothing supernatural. Any persuasion they feel towards materialism will ultimately be perceived as persuasion away from Christianity. Again, unnecessary disillusionment would follow.

This is why I try to make it very clear when I tell people that I favour a materialist view of human beings that sympathy for naturalism has nothing at all to do with my view. Far from it. When I began to entertain materialism I still (from memory) held to a young earth creationist view replete with belief in a global flood. I had never even heard the phrase “philosophy of mind” and I went on to attend a Pentecostal church. No, naturalism was nowhere in sight. I had come to this outlook because I had realised that my assumption that Scripture would amply support my dualistic assumptions about human nature – an assumption that I had absorbed, as most Christians do, from my culture – was false. I found that in fact the biblical support for that view was scant at best, and much of what I found in the Bible supported a view that I would once have regarded as totally alien, namely materialism. In the years since then I have immensely appreciated the more philosophical writings on the philosophy of mind, especially those written by my fellow Christians who wish to address the same questions that I do (people like Bruce Reichenbach, Trenton Merricks, Peter Van Inwagen, Nancey Murphy, Kevin Corcoran and others, as well as those with whom I disagree, William Hasker, J. P. Moreland, Stuart Goetz and others). For what it is worth, I think dualism has more support in that arena than in Scripture. I do not think that it has compelling support from conceptual / speculative arguments (and, as far as I can tell, no advantage over materialism – indeed, some of these arguments fail miserably, e.g. Plantinga’s modal argument for dualism), just more support than it finds in Scripture. Indeed I think the only real traction that dualism makes in the philosophical literature is to continually ask challenging questions of materialism (sometimes in the apparent but naïve hope that if materialists cannot answer them all then dualism must be true, quite overlooking whether or not dualism itself can answer those same questions – e.g. the question of how consciousness arises).

But the point I want to make here is that I think materialism commends itself to the Christian in particular because it is a position that finds much support in the Bible – a fact that surprises some people (largely for cultural reasons). The biblical writers never set out an explicit philosophy of mind as a subject in itself because doing so was simply not their purpose (any more than offering explicit teaching about physics was their purpose). But what the Bible does say about human nature and related matters fits more comfortably, I think, with a materialist view of human beings. I’m going to write a couple of blog posts, starting with this one, where I offer reasons for saying that this is true. Then in the next post on this subject I’ll look at the small number of proof texts that some dualists use as evidence against a materialist outlook. I’ve covered some of this biblical material in the podcast series In Search of the Soul, but these two blog posts will be more focused on why I think a Christian should be a materialist rather than a dualist (at least, a Christian who thinks that the biblical material has some authority on the matter), and why I find the attempts to say otherwise on biblical grounds unpersuasive. If there are further, philosophical reasons for entertaining materialism or dualism, they are beyond the scope of what I am looking at here and will not be addressed.

In the Beginning: Created from the dust

Right at the outset, this is what we are. When humans are created, it is from the dust. When animals are created, it is from the dust (Genesis 2:19). When the sentence for sin is announced, the climax is that “you are dust, and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19).

Most readers of the Bible are familiar with the creation of Adam in Genesis 2:7 – he was created from dust and brought to life with God’s breath. That which was formed from the dust – even before being brought to life – was called ha adam, “the man.” Right at the outset, this is what we are. When humans are created, it is from the dust. When animals are created, it is from the dust (Genesis 2:19). When the sentence for sin is announced, the climax is that “you are dust, and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19). No caveats are added, as though only part of human beings is in view, as though we should really understand the text to mean “your bodies are dust, and although you will survive the death of your body, your body will return to dust.” This would be eisegesis of the highest order. This thought doesn’t end with the creation story. The depiction of human beings as “dust” is a thread that runs throughout Scripture, particularly the Hebrew Scripture.

The Psalmist tells that God shows compassion “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (103:14). When our life comes to an end, the Psalmist writes (90:3), “You return man to dust and say, ‘Return, O children of man!’ ”

But is this simply metaphorical? It is somewhat metaphorical, yes. Our bodies are not actually dust. But why use this metaphor at all? Why not metaphors that support dualism? Why say that we are composed of natural elements if this is not true? Other ancient cultures managed to not speak about human beings in the way the Hebrew Bible does. For example, the Egyptians spoke of the soul or spirit being like a bird that enters a building for a short time and then flies out again.

Even when biblical writers are not being as metaphorical, they evidently conceive of their parts as being material, as in Job 10: 9-12.

Remember that you have made me like clay; and will you return me to the dust? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.

But what about the more important part, Job, the immaterial soul or spirit? It doesn’t enter the picture. It would be question-begging in the most obvious way to look at passages like these and say that they offer no insight on this issue because they were only written to describe the material aspect of human nature. This would be to import the foreign assumption that there are other parts to speak of. The truth is that Job was writing about what he called “me.”

When materialists speak of the Bible as offering a “holistic” view of human nature rather than a dualistic one, this is what they mean. The biblical writers spoke of themselves as creatures of the earth, not divided up into radically different substances, but molded from the stuff of the created universe.

Living Souls

We assume that because we use these words to mean something, the Bible uses them in the same way, so when we see in the Bible significant words that we are accustomed to using, we read our own views into the Bible. After all, our words are in the Bible, so our beliefs must also be in the Bible!

Part of the difficulty that many readers of the Bible need to overcome when reading the Bible in regard to this issue – or many other issues for that matter – is that we already have a religious vocabulary of our own and we know what we mean when we use those words – words like “soul” or “hell.” We assume that because we use these words to mean something, the Bible uses them in the same way, so when we see in the Bible significant words that we are accustomed to using, we read our own views into the Bible. After all, our words are in the Bible, so our beliefs must also be in the Bible! The word “soul” appears many times in our English Bibles. And materialists, unlike dualists, so the claim might go, do not believe in souls. So materialism must not be a biblical view.

But of course this is no way to go about reading the Bible. What matters is not how we are accustomed to using words, but instead what concepts lay behind the words that appear in the Bible. In order to engage this issue at all, we have to consider the various ways those words are used – and not the English words, but the words in the original languages (although the English translation should generally, if it is a good one, give us good insight into what the word means by accurately conveying the context to the reader).

There exists a discussion about whether or not animals have “souls.” If the question could be answered simply by determining whether or not the biblical word(s) translated “soul” was ever applied to animals, then the question can be answered very simply: Yes. In fact the biblical word for “soul” is applied to animals before it is ever applied to human beings, in spite of the translators of the King James Bible obscuring the fact (whether intentionally or otherwise). The Hebrew word that is translated “soul” is נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, from naphash, meaning to draw breath), and it occurs in the very first chapter of the Bible, before humans are mentioned.

The next place that the word occurs is in Genesis 2:7, the creation of Adam. “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.” I have intentionally used “soul” here, following the older translations, to make this point: The translators gave as “soul” when referring to a human being here in Genesis 2:7, but when referring to the animals in Genesis 1, they did not. The misleading impression here is that humans have souls or are souls, but animals are not. In truth the same term applies to them both. These things are bodily, tangible things made from the dust of the earth. Nephesh is even used in a couple of places to refer to dead bodies; Leviticus 21:11, Numbers 6:6, Number 19:11. Here people are instructed not to touch the dead body of a human being or they will become unclean for certain purposes.

The New Testament retains this usage of the Greek ψυχή (psuche, the word used to translate nephesh). Acts 27:37 recalls that “we were in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls” (KJV), although modern translations give us “276 peoples.” 1 Peter 3:20 reminds the reader that in the story of Noah, “eight souls” (KJV) were saved on the Ark, with modern versions giving us “eight people.” When the merchandise on the ships of Babylon is described in Revelation 18:13, it includes “cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.” Although the meaning conveyed is obviously correct, the KJV departs here from its characteristically literal approach, because John’s word here is not “slaves” but “bodies” (σωμάτων), although bodies refers to slaves. The precise translation of the verse differs from one translation to the next, but “bodies” is an idiomatic reference to slaves, with the additional “and human lives (psuchai, souls)” stressing the humanity and value of those bodies (compare with the New Living Bible, “bodies—that is, human slaves.”) Those bodies really amount to human psuchai or human souls – although “souls” would hardly be a helpful translation. But if we insist on using the word “souls,” it follows that souls are things that can be loaded onto ships and carried across the sea.

The term “soul” itself is vanishing from the pages of Bible translations…

The term “soul” itself is vanishing from the pages of Bible translations, precisely because of facts like these. The English word conjures up images of ghosts or invisible spirits in our bodies, a meaning that simply has nothing to do with the biblical terms that were once translated that way. Two further uses of both nephesh and psuche are perhaps the most common. The first is that phrase used in various forms in the older English versions: “my soul,” “your soul,” “his soul,” etc. “… in whom my soul delights.” “Bless the LORD O my soul.” “His soul shall dwell at ease.” “I will say to my soul…” and so on. in cases like these the underlying terms are being used essentially as personal pronouns, so that “my soul” just means “me,” “your soul” just means “you” and so on. For this reason these phrases are all but gone from modern English Bibles, now appearing primarily in poetic literature like the Psalms. For example “I will say to my soul” in Luke 12:19 has become “I will say to myself.” This is certainly a change for the better, where a translation does not introduce unnecessary mystery.

Lastly, these terms very often mean “life,” as in Mark 8:34ff: “For whoever would save his life (psuche) will lose it, but whoever loses his life (psuche) for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? (psuche) For what can a man give in return for his soul? (psuche)” It is a shame that the ESV has used “soul” here when the translators think that the eternal part is intended, but “life” when they think the text refers to this life. But in context it is clear that the writer means “life” throughout – for the one who loses his life now for the Gospel’s sake will find it forever.

In short, the biblical language of the “soul” does not carry so much as a whiff of dualism. By contrast, in Christian works on the mind-body problem, it nearly always just means the immaterial substance that is the self. This is why if one approaches the question of the “soul” from a biblical point of view rather than via the philosophical / theological literature, they will find no reason to think of the soul as dualists do. For anyone who is immersed in a world where every mention of “your soul” suggests something ethereal or invisible, this is no small discovery to make.

The breath of life

But what about the spirit? Maybe the Bible just uses its terms differently from us, so even though the word “soul” in our English Bibles doesn’t mean “soul” in the way that dualists use it, perhaps the word “spirit” in the Bible serves that function.

Perhaps. But as it turns out, it doesn’t. There are a couple of words in the Hebrew Bible that are translated as “spirit,” רוּחַ (ruach) and נְשָׁמָה (neshamah) both of which are translated by the same Greek word, πνεῦμα (pneuma), and which have overlapping meaning in the Hebrew Scripture. We have already seen neshamah at work in Genesis 2:7, where it is translated as “breath” (in “the breath of life,” or more literally, “breath of lives”). The phrase “breath of life” appears again several times in the story of Noah’s flood in Genesis 6 and 7, this time using ruach (illustrating the overlap of the two terms) referring to that breath of life held in common by all animals, human or otherwise. God promises, “I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven” (6:17). As part of Noah’s duty he took into the ark “two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life” (7:15). As for the creatures that did not enter the ark, including human beings, “Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.” The preacher in Ecclesiastes 3:19 likewise declared that both man and the animals “all have one breath (ruach).”

The writer of Job equates the two terms, using a parallelism: “All the while my breath (neshamah) is in me and the spirit (ruach) of God is in my nostrils” (Job 27:3). The spirit, in this sense, is God’s. He gave it to make men alive, and he will take it back. Job depicts all creatures as having breath on loan from God: “If he should set his heart to it and gather to himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust” (Job 34:15). The psalmist, too, made no clear distinction between the two terms, describing God’s providential care for all of creation, man and animal, then saying “When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath (ruach), they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your spirit (ruach), they are created, and you renew the face of the ground” (104:29-30).

Although it is common for evangelicals to read Ecclesiastes 12:7 as a reference to the survival of death, this is simply a mistake. When we read “the dust shall return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return to God who gave it,” we are seeing a continuation of the biblical portrayal of human beings as mortal and disappearing at death, when God takes back his spirit, which had been keeping us alive. When the biblical writers are talking about what is sometimes translated as “spirit” as an anthropological term (i.e. when talking about anything that is substantially “part” of us), William Dyrness is correct: “the person’s spirit and God’s are all but inseparable.”2

The epistle of James reflects this biblical anthropology, saying that “Just as the body without the spirit (pneuma) is dead, so too faith without works is dead.” Terms for spirit can mean more than this, however. At times they are similar in usage to heart or mind, referring to our mental or emotional qualities. We might have a brave spirit or a broken spirit, or be downcast or troubled in spirit. But at no point is there any reference – as there easily could have been – to us living on after death as a spirit, or to the spirit as the true self, a substance apart from the body. This is a truth borne out in the New Testament as well. When Stephen is martyred he cries out – just as any Old Testament reader could have “Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit” (Acts 7:59). It may be tempting to read dualism into a text like this, but we would only do so if we had no background in how the Hebrew Scripture uses this language. God takes back the spirit of all flesh when they die.

If biblical material like this is allowed to clearly speak, it paints a picture of human beings as earthly, physical beings – made of the same stuff as other creatures and dependent on God to keep us alive and breathing, returning to the dust from which we were made when we die.

The types of evidence discussed so far justifies the belief that the biblical material – when it appears to be speaking about human nature – is more supportive of materialism than dualism. This is why I maintain that those who think that Scripture is supportive of a dualist view do not hold this view because of the things that the biblical writers say about beings and the various bits and pieces (if there are any) that make us up. Such passages of Scripture just do not support a dualist view at all. Instead, I think Christians who see dualism in the Bible do so because they believe that some biblical passages assume that when our bodies die we will go on living. Surely, these Christians think, this can only happen if we are really immaterial entities that can live without our bodies. I will say something about those passages of Scripture in the next instalment of this short series. For now, however, I want to make the opposite point. In fact the vast majority of what the Bible says about death militates against the popular notion that instead of truly dying, we simply pass on to heaven while our bodies remain in the graves. What the Bible says about death, like what it says about human nature in general, is most compatible with a materialist view of human beings.

Sleeping and Waking

It is often said that the Bible says “very little” about the state of the dead (a state often called “the intermediate state,” because it is the state between death and resurrection). The implication is that there is a lot more that the biblical writers could have said if they had wanted to, but they just chose not to. Or perhaps God could have revealed a whole lot more to them – because there is a lot to say about where the dead are and what they are up to, but for some reason God just didn’t want to. But what if that isn’t true?

What if the Bible actually does tell us most of what there is to know about the state of the dead, but we don’t realise that it does, because we believe much more about the intermediate state than what the Bible says?

What if the Bible actually does tell us most of what there is to know about the state of the dead, but we don’t realise that it does, because we believe much more about the intermediate state than what the Bible says? I realise there are a few passages of Scripture where dualists think the biblical writers are giving tiny snippets of information about the “other side,” but I’ll come to those in the next post in this series.

The Bible actually does paint a picture of death, but many readers don’t recognise it as doing so largely because what it says is not what they were expecting. We have already seen some examples when looking at what Scripture says about human nature, but they warrant reiteration here.

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Not only is it true that we are dust, but that is where we are heading when we die. It is not that our bodies are dust and we shall one day escape them. We are bodily things, and when the body dies, we die, returning to the natural elements of which we are composed.

“The dust will return to the earth as it was and the spirit will return to God who gave it.” As noted previously, there is no light at the end of the tunnel in these words. This is a reversal of the creation of Adam in Genesis 2:7, when breath and body were combined to make a living soul. Here the elements are separated, as they were before (notice the use of the word “return”). Where was the man before he was created? Nowhere, which is where he will be when he dies.

As creatures of the earth, made from physical matter and possessing the breath of life, we return to the earth when the breath of life leaves us. This is already implicit in the passages we have seen that describe human nature. But there is more in Scripture about this as well. When Daniel looks forward to a future time when the dead will rise, he says (12:2), “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake.” People will wake up. And where are they now? Sleeping. Where? In the dust of the earth. Their souls are not in repose in the world beyond the grave, alive somewhere out there. They returned to the dust, and from thence they shall come.

Beyond these, there are a number of occasions where the biblical writers refer to the current state of those who have died. Often when people in the Old Testament die we read that “he slept with his fathers.” Search for that phrase in the Bible and you’ll see it occurring often (e.g. Moses in Deuteronomy 31:16, David in 2 Samuel 7:12, Omri in 1 Kings 16:28 etc). In fact death is referred to as “sleep” 66 times in the Bible, in the Old and New Testament. If this was a figure of speech used by perhaps a few authors then there might be grounds for saying that it was just their own euphemistic way of talking about death. But while of course we cannot take the reference to death literally (the dead do not snore!), there is surely a point to the description. The dead are not conscious. They do not do anything (indeed, as the Psalmist says (6:5, 88:10, 115:17) and as Isaiah claims (38:18), the dead do not even praise God anymore). As the writer of Ecclesiastes urged the reader – do it now (whatever you are going to do), because there is no activity in the place of the dead (9:10).

It is true that the biblical writers affirm that there is a sense in which we now have eternal life, saying that we have “passed from death to life.” But it is also clear that those same writers operated with a heavy dose of “not yet.” Yes, Jesus said that whoever believes in him “will have everlasting life,” but in the next breath, as though explaining what he meant, he said “and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40). Likewise, although St Paul stated plainly to two churches that “we have redemption” through the shed blood of Christ (Ephesians 1:7, Colossians 1:14), he also stated, equally plainly, that the redemption we have is still in the future, that we have the Holy Spirit as a pledge, “until the redemption of the purchased possession” (Ephesians 1:14). Although we have already received the “spirit of adoption” (Romans 8:15) enabling us to, right now, cry “Abba Father,” Paul placed the fulfilment of our adoption, like our redemption, in the future, because we “who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). These things: eternal life, redemption, adoption, are ours as a guarantee of which we may be quite certain, but they are truths that are yet to be fully realised, coming to pass at the resurrection of the dead, the redemption of our bodies.

In fact, St Paul makes a remarkable claim in his first letter to the Corinthians, saying that unless there is a bodily resurrection, unless Jesus bodily rose, enabling our bodily resurrection, then there cannot be any future beyond death, and “those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished,” so we may as well just eat drink and be merry, because when we die, it’s all over. I say more about this in “Eat Drink and be Merry: 1 Corinthians 15 and Physicalism.” The main point is that if it were possible to live after death as an unembodied soul or mind, Paul would simply be mistaken. The absence of a bodily resurrection might rule out one type of future life beyond the grave, but it surely would not rule out all possibility of life after death. Hence, Paul appears to presuppose a materialist view of human beings.

It would have been very easy for the biblical writers to talk about a person surviving as a spirit or a soul when the body died.

It would have been very easy for the biblical writers to talk about a person surviving as a spirit or a soul when the body died. There are plenty of examples in the ancient world of people saying this. Plato claimed with ease that when his body dies, his soul will not. The ancient Egyptians had little difficulty speaking about people living on in the afterlife. The Mesopotamians spoke about the dismal conditions of the underworld into which the soul would venture after death, and the Greco-Roman world was full of similar tales. And yet, the biblical writers say nothing of the sort.3 Because of how easy it would have been to say this had they wished to, it is therefore noteworthy that the biblical writers never did, speaking instead of either nothing specific (because they simply didn’t know or didn’t specify how a future life beyond death would be achieved) or of the sleep of death followed by the resurrection of the dead.

Conditional Immortality

The last biblical consideration that I will mention here has wide-ranging implications (for example it has important implications for a Christian view of human destiny, specifically the doctrine of hell, which I will not discuss here). As I indicated earlier, most people who think that dualism is biblical do so because they think the Bible teaches that the soul, unlike the body, does not die, and so there must be an immaterial soul in the first place. But in addition to believing that there exists an immaterial soul, this view of body and soul involves the belief that there is something very different about the body and the soul when it comes to death. Bodies die, but souls do not (unless God were to intervene and do something to destroy the soul).

I have already looked at some of what the Bible says about death, which calls this view of human beings into question. However, if there are also good reasons to deny that there could be a soul that is immortal in this sense (literally “undying”), then we would have a second reason to reject this view of human beings, and we would lose one of the reasons that some people have for thinking that dualism is biblical.

Earlier we saw the way that death was described in the story of the fall, as a return to the dust that we are made from, undercutting a dualistic portrait of human beings. But now let’s ask the question: Why was this fate handed down to sinful human beings? On its own terms, how (if at all) does the narrative in Genesis describe the rationale for death following sin? As it turns out, the rationale is spelled out quite clearly in Genesis 3:22-23.

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.

There’s an interesting reticence here. The thought of God seemingly trails off, never completed: “Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” Well? What about it? The sentence leaves us hanging, because the thought is too terrible to complete. This is the rationale for expulsion from the garden. It is because in a state of sin, human beings could not continue in existence. God would not even contemplate the idea. And so God sent them from the garden. Sin separated them from God, and God brought an end to their life in that state, for that is not what human beings were meant for.

Human beings are mortal. Their life comes to an end when they die, and they do not survive in another form, as though the real issue in Genesis was living one way (in Eden in bodily form) vs living another way (outside of Eden and then on after the demise of the body, in a disembodied state). Certainly life was changed in the story, but it was more than just changed, it was brought to an end. Life is lost to death, and throughout Scripture the hope of immortality – of living and not dying again – is bound up with God’s plan of salvation, being revealed fully through the Gospel and the resurrection of the dead made possible through Christ. It is through the Gospel that God has “brought life and immortality to light” (2 Timothy 1:10). Set aside for now the question of the scope of immortality in the future (I have made it clear elsewhere that I part ways with the traditional view here because I do not think that immortality will come to all). The point is that the biblical portrayal of life, death and immortality is that our existence is marked by mortality and death.

To posit the survival of death by all people is really just to deny the reality of death in the biblical story. It is not as though we are all players in the game of earthly life like players in a game of rugby, and we have all been penalised so we must leave our uniforms behind and hit the showers – still living but no longer in this world. This is the way that some religions view earthly life: It is a temporary part of our on-going existence, and we may enter and leave it, with bodies coming and going while we march on (figuratively speaking of course). But this is not a biblical vision of what we are. Unlike a game of rugby where we can begin and end many times, life is all we have, and if we lose it then we are not. From a biblical point of view it makes no sense to say “OK, so I am not alive anymore. Now what?” We are mortal, and to talk of us going on when our bodies die is to simply not take our mortality seriously. It may be frightening to think of our life as a vapour or of ourselves like the grass of the field that is here today and gone tomorrow with nothing remaining, but that is exactly how Scripture describes mortal human beings. “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). “Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath” (Psalm 39:5)! If anyone is inclined to think that dualism is biblical because they think that the Bible encourages us to think that the soul is immortal, then that is a reason for maintaining dualism that should be rejected in its entirety. No part of us is immortal, on a biblical view of human nature. Genesis depicts us as mortal and this view is repeated many times, with emphases on our frailty and temporary existence. Immortality only rears its head as a promise, vague at first but one that fully comes to light through the resurrection of the dead.

In closing, I know that some Christians who read this may find it all a bit dreary. I’ve painted a dismal picture, they might think: We’re just dust, and when we die we’re gone. If this is your instinctive reaction, then it’s possible that your hope has been misplaced. The consistent Christian message freely acknowledges the badness of death and our own mortal state. To quote Isaiah 40:6, “all flesh is grass.” Our hope should never be bound up in the idea that we’ve got the stuff that will live on in spite of death, as though death isn’t really real.

It is entirely fitting to fear death and to see ourselves as utterly lacking the resources to survive it.

It is entirely fitting to fear death and to see ourselves as utterly lacking the resources to survive it. This is why through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, he delivers “those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 3:15). When it comes to life beyond the grave, it’s the resurrection or nothing. But there is nothing demeaning about viewing human beings as part of the physical creation. The physical world is good, and it does not reduce human dignity to see ourselves – every bit of us – as part of it. Like everything in creation, our being is sustained by our creator, and whatever intrinsic dignity and permanence we can hope for is bound up with that relationship. Hopefully at least this fairly short introduction is enough to show that a materialist view of human beings is not at odds with a biblical view. Even if there are a few texts that might suggest to some a dualistic view of human beings, that is not at all the consensus of Scripture.

In the next instalment I’ll look at some of the attempts to find dualism in several well-known passages of the Bible.

Glenn Peoples

  1. Specifically, I mean substance dualism, a view most clearly represented by the French philosopher René Descartes, or in classical thought by Plato. Materialism as a view of human beings is compatible with property dualism, with emergentism or with hylemorphism (in which a human being, like any other creature, is a compound of matter and form), in spite of the fact that the word dualism is used to describe each. The key is that these are views where the only substance involved is a physical substance. []
  2. William Dyrness, Themes in Old Testament Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1979), 71. []
  3. The sole apparent exception may be the story of the Rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31, remarkable just because it is unlike anything else in Scripture. I will comment on this in part 2. []

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50 Comments

  1. Glenn, to whom do you ascribe the lion’s share of the blame for the mistranslational mess surrounding the terms and names ‘nephesh’, ‘pneuma’, ‘Sheol’, ‘Gehenna’, etc.? Jerome?

  2. David Midkiff

    I’m becoming more and more convinced of physicalism each day. I suppose materialism and physicalism are synonymous? Anyway, really good article! A thought concerning the history and development of dualism: Plato certainly made it a comprehensive system of thought, but I believe he inherited it from earlier pagan thought dating back before the time of Babel and even Noah. It’s just that dualistic thinking is so pervasive in religions of antiquity (Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.) in addition to animism and folk religions all over the world today, that it seems they all inherited it from a common source in antiquity: perhaps a common pagan lie concerning dualism stemmed from a time when humanity was clustered together and in rebellion against God (i.e. Babel or before…). Living under the curse and fear of death would have motivated humanity to want to explain away their fears with the Satanic lie that they would naturally survive death and live forever without God. The ethereal nature of dreams probably reinforced (and still reinforces) their convictions of supposed consciousness outside of the body. (My own lucid dreams certainly convinced me of dualism for some time; but now I see them for what they are, simply dreams in my mind.) In any case, it is very profound and illuminating to me to see what Scripture actually teaches on this subject. Thank you!

  3. Western Canadian Reader

    Can you please comment on how you view the rest of the creation, specifically animals? Will there be a resurrection for them too?

  4. WCR (as per the blog policy, real names are generally required), all I am justified in saying in that regard is that if that’s going to happen, we don’t know about it.

  5. Ciaron

    I was surprised to realise that my conceptual understanding of a soul was, as you point out, a product of my pre-Christian days and not rooted in the bible as I had assumed 🙂
    But, given materialism, (and your superior lingustic training) how are to understand Psalm 31 v.9?
    Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress;
    my eyes grow weak with sorrow,
    my soul and body with grief.

    On first glance it seems clear that he is talking about his body and soul from a dualistic perspective, But I think that is me reading my understanding of what a Soul is into the passage, so is it then correct to read this as David saying he “emotionally” and physically stressed?

    Thanks,

  6. Paul Hammell

    Hi Glenn, I am someone who is unsure about whether dualism or physicalism is the correct view (I am a conditionalist, thanks largely to your writing on the subject).

    Just wondering how physicalists understand the passage in 1 Samuel 28 where the witch consults the ‘spirit’ of Samuel? Although I can’t find any word for spirit in the passage, the image of Samuel conversing with Saul without a body would imply he has some incorporeal part to his being.

    Also wondering about Enoch in Hebrews 11:5 (which I think would be more difficult for dualism to explain). If Enoch was taken away without dying, does he still exist as a physical body somewhere?

  7. Paul – I’ll be looking at the familiar passages used in support of dualism in part 2, and that’s one of them.

    Ciaron:
    “is it then correct to read this as David saying he “emotionally” and physically stressed?”

    Yes that sounds about right.

  8. Glenn, how do you explain Mark 5:13?

  9. Richard, that’s not even a passage people use to support dualism about human beings. Normally I would say “in part 2!” But not even in part 2 would I consider that passage.

  10. James

    Very interesting! It seems that the dualist perspective explains the lack of enthusiasm from many for the doctrine of the resurrection, in particular, for the resurrection as a solution to a problem.

    For the dualist, the resurrection is the answer to a problem that is not actually a problem!

    Looking forward to part two. 🙂

  11. Kenneth

    This is interesting, I’ve always been very worried about people who claim that Jesus had a purely “spiritual” resurrection and was not resurrected in the body, it seems to me that under a dualistic understanding of Christianity it is harder to understand Pauls saying in 1 Corinthians 15:30-32 and it seems that Jesus’s bodily resurrection is no longer necessary, and it’s easier to make claims about a spiritual resurrection instead. It also seems to add weight to N T Wright’s point that ancient Jews could not have envisioned a resurrection as anything other than bodily.

  12. Tucker

    Glenn, I would be interested in hearing about some specific examples of the KJV getting it wrong, as I have been in discussion with a friend who insists that “very little” in the way of doctrine is affected by KJV mistranslations.

  13. DrewK

    Very eye-opening. I had never thought these things through. Your point of view makes more sense of the biblical data. I mean, what difference does being resurrected make if we just live on in heaven as disembodied souls? Why do we confess in the creeds of believing in the resurrection of the dead? On the dualistic view, death is really not “the last enemy” to be overcome. I think I am convinced, though there are numerous implications for other doctrines I shall have to ponder. In any case, I shall not ever read Scripture the same again.

  14. Hello Glenn, I find this post so brilliant that I posted and commented it on my blog.

    Woud you mind if I translated it into German somewhat in the future?

    If you have time, you might be interested to interact a bit with my progressive and atheistic commentators since you are much more qualified than I to answer them.

    Lovely greetings from Europe.

  15. Glad you liked it, Lorthason. By all means, translate to your heart’s content! 🙂 By the way, that photo looks nothing like me these days!

    I would just draw attention to the blog policy. Scroll down to the section on copyright. I say this especially in light of your visitor’s comment: “I hope you post the next installment in this series.”

  16. Hello, I added “Copyright Dr. Glenn People” at the end of the text and emphasized it.
    I apologize not having read that earlier.

    Is that okay so?

    As I said I really enjoy your thoroughtthinking posts and hope we will have opportunities to interact in the future.

    Cheers.

  17. Frank

    Great article, Glenn. I’m a conditionalist who has never understood the traditional belief that death only means spiritual death, which seems to mean that when people die they essentially take their body off as if it were a coat. Why would scripture make such a big deal about taking off a coat? I do hope you include Matthew 10:28 in Part II.

  18. Hi Frank – I wrote an article on Matthew 10:28 over at Afterlife, which is a site I recommend on this issue.

  19. Frank

    Thanks, Glenn. That was exactly what I was looking for!

  20. Andres

    Glenn, if everything said on evolution is true, do you believe that is plausible believing in God, even if you are not a dualist? I make that silly question, because evolutionary christians say that God put a soul into human bodies at one point in history.

  21. Hi Andres

    I think belief in God is plausible quite regardless of evolution, and regardless of whether or not materialism or dualism is true. Richard Swinburne, for example, is an evolutionist and a dualist, whereas Nancey Murphy is an evolutionist and a materialist, but both them are (as far as I know) fine Christians. Of all of the reasons that I can think of to believe in God, dualism is not one of them – mainly because it is more contentious and easier to deny than the existence of God.

  22. Andres

    Thank you for the answer, Glenn.

  23. Sophie

    I think you have a lot of difficulty explaining Biblical references to spiritual death and spiritual rebirth if you deny the existence of the soul. Original sin, too, is a difficult concept to reconcile with physicalism.

    “Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said: “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no-one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.

    In reply Jesus declared: “I tell you thetruth, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

    “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”

    Jesus answered: “I tell you the truth, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”

  24. “I think you have a lot of difficulty explaining Biblical references to spiritual death and spiritual rebirth if you deny the existence of the soul.”

    Sophie, there are a couple of things to say about that. First, it’s not true. Things that are “spiritual” are not therefore automatically non-material substances. For example, St Paul talks about the “spiritual man” as opposed to the “natural man.” But they are both flesh-and-blood types of people. It’s not that one of them is a normal man but the other one is a ghost (!). Instead, words like “spiritual” can be used to refer to our relationship with God.

    The second thing to say is this: Saying “But that creates a problem for X” is not really my problem. If I provide a huge amount of biblical data supporting the view that we are physical, then it is inadequate to point out that there is one issue that I cannot deal with. Maybe you should change your view on that one thing, so that your view agrees with the vast weight of biblical teaching.

    “Original sin, too, is a difficult concept to reconcile with physicalism.”

    That depends what you believe about original sin. But the mainstream view among Protestantism, historically, is a view in which Adam represented the human race before God, and Christ likewise represents all those who are saved through him. There is nothing about this that requires a dualistic view of human nature.

    Thanks for your comments, Sophie. I do appreciate them. 🙂

  25. Sophie

    “Sophie, there are a couple of things to say about that. First, it’s not true. Things that are “spiritual” are not therefore automatically non-material substances. For example, St Paul talks about the “spiritual man” as opposed to the “natural man.” But they are both flesh-and-blood types of people. It’s not that one of them is a normal man but the other one is a ghost (!). Instead, words like “spiritual” can be used to refer to our relationship with God.”

    Yes. But it is clear from the passage I quoted you (and I could quote many like it) that rebirth is a spiritual event. Nothing actually happens to our bodies when we are born again. We cannot re-enter our mother’s womb, as Nicodemus says.

    “That depends what you believe about original sin. But the mainstream view among Protestantism, historically, is a view in which Adam represented the human race before God, and Christ likewise represents all those who are saved through him. There is nothing about this that requires a dualistic view of human nature.”

    We have inherited a sinful nature or inclination towards evil which obviously isn’t a component of our physical bodies. This is why no human being is capable of keeping the moral law perfectly. I am not really talking about guilt before God.

    Thanks for your reply Glenn, and thank you for the opportunity to post on this blog.

  26. Sophie

    I must confess that “Sophie” is not my real name (I would rather that people Googling my name didn’t automatically find a theology blog) and as ticking the box which says “My comment conforms to the blog policy” feels too much like lying, I won’t post any further. I assumed that the pseudonym policy was to encourage courteous and rational discussion which is what I have endeavoured to do, so I don’t feel too guilty.

  27. “But it is clear from the passage I quoted you (and I could quote many like it) that rebirth is a spiritual event. Nothing actually happens to our bodies when we are born again. We cannot re-enter our mother’s womb, as Nicodemus says.”

    That’s right, it’s a change in our relationship with God, not a change in (e.g.) the way we look or anything. But that doesn’t require that we have to be made from this or that.

    I also have to confess that I find it a bit strange to talk about a non-physical thing “inheriting” something from our parents. I know that bodies can inherit things from their parents, but there’s surely no such thing as soul DNA!

    You’re always welcome back! But yes, I do ask people to use real names unless there’s an important reason not to.

  28. Francesca

    Hmmmm. There are loads of verses actually which suggest that your view is erroneous. If the Biblical references to soul and spirit simply mean ‘mind’, how do you explain 1 Corinthians 14 which says that when we pray in tongues our spirit prays but our mind is unfruitful?

    And what about Matthew 10:28, where Jesus says not to fear those who can kill the body, but He who can kill both body and soul in hell?

    I could probably come up with more but for now I am interested in your responses to those verses. Also to your forthcoming comments on the passage about the rich man burning away in hell while Lazarus is up in heaven (although fyi, I don’t think that is the strongest passage on the existence of the soul by any means.)

    (Yes, I am Sophie, for the reference. Francesca is my real name.)

    • Hi Francesca. I think the weight of evidence here is considerable.

      But in regard to the two verses that you mentioned: In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul does not say that when we pray in another language, our spirit prays but our mind does not pray. He says that our spirit prays, but our mind / nous / understanding is not fruitful. In context, the type of fruit that Paul is talking about is not the fruit of personal benefit (indeed I think he is grossly misinterpreted by those who think that he is encouraging people to pray in other tongue to edify themselves). “Fruit” is the edification of the gathered believers. So when we pray in another language – sure, we’re genuinely praying (I think this is what he means by “my spirit prays), but what’s in our mind doesn’t benefit anybody else.

      In Matthew 10:28 the most plausible meaning for psuche is “life,” and I’ve said a bit more about that here: http://www.afterlife.co.nz/2013/bible/matthew-1028-and-dualism-is-the-soul-immortal/

  29. Francesca

    Well, for now, I’ll have the grace to actually concede that is a pretty good response re: 1 Corinthians 14, although I disagree with it and it has never struck me as the natural way to read the passage. I’ll have a reread of the chapter in the morning (or sometime in the near future) and see what I think then.

  30. Thanks Francesca. Your question reminded me that I had intended to say a thing or two about speaking in tongues, so that’ll be appearing before too long.

  31. Francesca

    I just thought I’d say that I have continued to think about this article at the back of my mind. A debate on all the Bible verses on this subject is not something I have time to do at the moment. However, I will say that today I was diagnosed with a form of OCD. Over the past couple of months as I have thought about this blog post (it was the first time I had been exposed to Christian materialism) I have become more convinced every day from personal experience that I am not my mind and that I am much, much more than the sum of my thoughts. For psychological reasons going back to my childhood my mind needs and enjoys certain thoughts, but I, my spirit, the deeper person, do not and wish them gone. I have similar thoughts on my grandmother who is suffering from dementia: she believes in God in her spirit even though her mind is going.

  32. Greg

    Glenn,
    What do you make of the substantial evidence documented supporting the continued conscious awareness of individuals outside of their physical bodies during near death experiences. J.P. Moreland and Gary Habermas co-authored a book titled Beyond Death that explores such documented evidence. Have you read that and/or other such works? How can a physicalist view account for such evidence without just dismissing it out of hand?

  33. Hi Greg

    The purpose of this blog post is to show (albeit fairly briefly) that a holistic / material view of human beings is a biblical view. In the follow up posts in the series (there is one so far), I respond to counter arguments based on various biblical passages.

    What Moreland, Habermas, D’Souza and others have tried to argue in their works about near death experiences is not that the Bible teaches dualism after all (although other authors have attempted to make that case). So even if they demonstrate everything they claim to demonstrate, that would not falsify what I have sought to show here. At most, they will have shown that the biblical teaching is false.

    I am currently fairly dismissive of the type of argument you refer to. I do not believe it makes the case for dualism or of post-mortem survival in disembodied form, and I actually think it degrades Christian scholarship for that sort of thing to be taken seriously. I have a small stack of books, including the ones you refer to, that I will be working my way through as I prepare to make a more substantial comment here at Right Reason, either as a blog or two, or as a podcast episode. But whatever I say about their case when I come to it, I am pretty certain that nothing they say demonstrates that what I have said about biblical teaching is false. I have only attempted here to help people see what the biblical writers said.

  34. Greg

    Glenn,
    Thank you for your response. Please do not take my following comments as a personal attack. They are intended merely as a sincere observation on my part for your consideration. Your view may in fact be correct, however your response seems to be lacking an appropriate level of epistemic humility. I have not yet read all of your arguments and responses to counter arguments yet. What I have read from you has given me pause in my dualistic understanding of human nature and made me realize I will need to carefully consider this issue. But it is hard for me to imagine that your biblical case for physicalism and against dualism is so airtight that conclusive evidence of the post-mortem survival of the soul/spirit in disembodied form would actually prove that the biblical teaching is false! Could it not be that your interpretation was somehow mistaken? After myriads of extremely smart and well educated sincere followers of Christ have been convinced that dualism is clearly implied by the teachings of scripture. Is it even possible that what you are offering is merely a legitimate interpretation of the biblical texts that might be mistaken? You might be right and I look forward to learning more about this issue. However, I sincerely urge you to exercise caution… not to confuse the inerrancy and authority of scripture with the inerrancy and authority of your own interpretation. There is nothing wrong with being confident in your view if you are convinced that the arguments in support of it outweigh the arguments against it. However, you give the impression that you are not even open in principle to the possibility that you might be mistaken in your view. Rather than confidence it comes across as arrogance and feels condescending to those who do not take your view (the majority). The tone of you’re words seem to convey an an air of intellectual superiority and a bit of contempt for those who do not share you’re view, presumably because they are misrepresenting the true biblical teaching out of negligence and /or impure motives. Even if you are right and they are wrong is it not uncharitable and un-Christlike to speak in a mildly contemptuous and condescending tone about Moreland, Habermas, D’Souza? Don’t get me wrong, you did not say anything overtly condemning, perhaps I am wrong in my assessment, however it is for you to judge before Christ. I just felt compelled to offer this word of caution to you. Take it for what its worth.

  35. > you give the impression that you are not even open in principle to the possibility that you might be mistaken in your view. Rather than confidence it comes across as arrogance and feels condescending to those who do not take your view (the majority). The tone of you’re words seem to convey an an air of intellectual superiority and a bit of contempt for those who do not share you’re view

    Thanks, Greg. People say exactly the same thing about me. And I just can’t see it. But I suppose that you’re right. And I suppose that Glenn should suppose that you’re right. 🙁

  36. Greg, I don’t share your view that we can’t voice our prima facie impression of a type of argument (in this case, near death experience testimony) on pain of lacking epistemic humility. At first blush it seems batty, not serious at all. I currently see very little possibility that I would find an argument like that plausible.

    We all have this impression of certain arguments, I suspect. Arguments that the earth is about 6,000 years old, arguments that vaccines don’t help to protect against disease and other things. I don’t think we’re obliged to feign respect for an argument that we view this way. Maybe you think I should just find this particular argument to be more initially serious and so describe them that way, but I don’t know that it’s in my power. There are some considerable arguments for dualism, to be sure, but this one just seems like a carnival sideshow. In this case it’s not at all about people who don’t hold my view as you say, it’s about this sort of argument for the alternative. That’s an important distinction: This was not a comment about dualism, it was a comment on making the case for dualism by appealing to near death experiences. I suppose I could have not told you what I think of the argument – but that was your question. 🙂

    You’ll know what my more considered response is like once I’ve digested more evidence, but currently that sort of argument just looks hopeless to me. Sorry if that comes across as arrogant, but it’s the truth.

  37. Greg

    Glenn,
    The way I currently see it,
    1) the philosophical evidence for dualism is strong. It seems to have the greatest explanatory power.
    2) the biblical text can at least be legitimately interpreted as consistent with dualism though perhaps the text may also be legitimately interpreted as consistent with physicalism.
    3) the evidence from near death experiences is additional evidence on top of the existing strong philosophical case that confirms a dualistic interpretation from the biblical text.

    So as I see it, while a good case may be made from the bible for physicalism a good case can also be made for dualism and the evidence from near-death experiences tips the scales so that the weight of the evidence favors dualism as the correct view. I could be argued out of this view but that’s the way I currently see it.

    Why do you have a preconceived notion of evidence from near death experience as being “like a carnival side show”? I suggest that it is only because of the naturalistic bias that pervades our culture and academic institutions today. It is not seen as credible among the scientific and academic elite today simply because naturalism is assumed and it cannot possibly be true unless naturalism is false. I know that you do not subscribe to naturalism yourself but perhaps your notions of the credulity of this sort of thing have been absorbed from the prevailing views of our culture more than you realize.

    The evidence from near death experience stands or falls by its own merit. Why should there be any pre-existing bias against it from a biblical worldview? Do you dismiss the evidence of the resurrection of Christ as a “carnival side-show”. To be sure many dismissed it then and to this day with that rationale. But the fact is that the historical evidence for the resurrection is very compelling (yet not 100% conclusive) even to this day to anyone willing to seriously consider it and not label it as absurd on its face.

    Evidence from near death experiences cannot be 100% conclusive either because the reliability of the source can always be called into question. But I think you’ll find that the evidence in some cases is quite compelling. When a person reports knowledge of things that they observed while “out of their body” that they could not have possibly observed if physicalism is true and they are identical with their body, that is “verifiable” evidence in support of dualism any way you slice it. Of course the difficulty is verifying the reliability of the sources of these accounts and how well they are documented but at least in principle you have to agree that this is a legitimate way to confirm dualism to be true. As you read some of the more compelling accounts in Moreland and Habermas’s book ask yourself, if you were there for one of these events and knew first hand that the facts alleged were true would you be persuaded? If not why not and what would be your alternative explanation?
    I totally disagree that if Moreland and Habermas succeed in demonstrating dualism to be true that the biblical teaching is false. It would merely demonstrate that the physicalist interpretation of the text which is a legitimate interpretation on the basis of the text alone turns out in fact to be wrong and the alternative view of dualism which has long been the predominant view within the church (and is also a legitimate interpretation) turns out to be correct.

    You may in fact be correct that dualism is false, but please do not let your preexisting commitment to that view prevent you from honestly weighing the evidence just because it could potentially dis-confirm a view that you are greatly invested in. You are an extremely smart guy and I look forward to reading your analysis of the evidence from NDEs. I just get the feeling that you might not give it a fair shake and that would be a real shame.

  38. “Why do you have a preconceived notion of evidence from near death experience as being “like a carnival side show”? I suggest that it is only because of the naturalistic bias that pervades our culture and academic institutions today.”

    I don’t think that’s reasonable. I didn’t arrive at a materialist view because I have any sort of commitment to naturalism. I have always been in the church, and I was raised with the dualistic presuppositions that most Christians hold – and actually which most people in the world, even the Western world, hold. I reluctantly gave up that view because I became convinced that a material view of human beings was more biblical.

    So I don’t think it’s likely at all that I regard this sort of argument as implausible because of some sort of a naturalistic bias. I’m pretty sure that I don’t even have a naturalistic bias – I have a supernaturalistic bias.

    “I totally disagree that if Moreland and Habermas succeed in demonstrating dualism to be true that the biblical teaching is false. It would merely demonstrate that the physicalist interpretation of the text which is a legitimate interpretation on the basis of the text alone turns out in fact to be wrong and the alternative view of dualism which has long been the predominant view within the church (and is also a legitimate interpretation) turns out to be correct.”

    I don’t think the meaning of Scripture is infinitely malleable. By that I mean that I don’t agree that if we change our minds on some issue that Scripture speaks to, we can legitimately just change our interpretation of Scripture while keeping our integrity intact. Scripture has a meaning, and we can’t – not honestly anyway – just declare that it means something else because we’ve changed our mind on the basis of science. True, we might have misread it, and it’s fair enough to go back to the text and ask if we have been mistaken or not. But I do not believe dualism is a biblical view. I think the Scripture supports materialism about human beings. Consequently, I think my integrity requires me to say that any plausible argument for dualism about human beings is also an argument for the falsity of Scripture. Now, if they also came up with a new and interesting case that dualism is more biblical, that would be something. But thus far I think the case for that claim is weak. Realising this is what caused me to give up dualism.

    “please do not let your preexisting commitment to that view prevent you from honestly weighing the evidence just because it could potentially dis-confirm a view that you are greatly invested in.”

    “Just because” is probably a bit uncharitable. I have seen a little of the evidence from NDEs and a little of the scientific literature about them – but only a little. What I have seen suggests that this is not really a serious argument. As I said, I do grant that there are serious arguments for dualism, so I am not so blind as to rule that out. But I do not currently count this argument among those serious arguments.

  39. Jim

    Hi Greg, just wondered how seriously you take the scriptural evidence for physicalism. To my reading, physicalism is indeed the majority view; consequently, any verses that appear to support dualism are, in all probability, only so because a dualist perspective has been assumed and read in to the passage. Surely, the broad span of scripture which proclaims a particular, largely consistent and uniform theme should be the interpretive lens through which we understand more ‘ambiguous’ texts on the subject. Texts such as 1 Thess 5:23, Phil 1:23, 2 Cor 5:1-10, the thief on the cross, Luke 16 and the rich man and Lazarus, the disciples’ vision of Moses and Elijah, Samuel summoned before Saul by the witch and Ecc 3:21 are the usual ones put forward with dualistic overtones – ones that seem to hint strongly at a disembodied post-death existence.

    However, each of these can be given a very different and thoroughly physicalist reading if the biblical majority view is maintained – that man is a unified whole who is eventually subject to the total death of his being. So, from your 3 points above, it could be that:

    1) The biblical view interprets itself and is not subject to an understanding based on uninspired, mostly Platonic philosophy (if that’s what you meant in respect of philosophy).
    2) On balance, the Hebrew worldview (and certainly Paul’s) was very much monistic. His hope was first and only resurrection of the body, not a ‘Greek’ disembodiment.
    3) Without being uncharitable to the scientific research into NDEs, they are probably in the same category as black holes when it comes to our ability to firmly grasp all the forces at work in each.

    Michael Shermer’s article in Scientific American: ‘Why a Near Death Experience Isn’t Proof of Heaven’ makes the case that, on the balance of evidence, NDEs are hallucinatory brain activities not examples of ontological dualism. So, would you agree that the scales are actually tipped more in favour of physicalism, on both biblical and scientific grounds?

  40. Greg

    Jim,
    I take Scripture seriously. I am open to being persuaded otherwise but currently I do not agree that the scales are actually tipped more in favor of physicalism, on both biblical and scientific grounds. I have to admit though that while I am well acquainted with scripture I have entered into this discussion with very little knowledge of the biblical case for physicalism. Perhaps it is because of platonic philosophical assumptions as you suggest but I have just never seen it or even considered it. My first time even being exposed to the idea was listening to one of Glenn’s podcasts. It is clear I need to do some homework. I do not know what the physicalist explanations for the passages you cited above are or how the broad case is made.

  41. Greg

    Glenn,
    “I didn’t arrive at a materialist view because I have any sort of commitment to naturalism. … I reluctantly gave up [dualism] because I became convinced that a material view of human beings was more biblical.”

    Like I said, I know that you don’t have a conscious naturalistic bias. The reason I suggested you might have a bit of a naturalistic bias that you are unaware of is because when I reflect on my own experience I think I see something like that going on within myself. For example I am persuaded for a myriad of reasons, too numerous to count, that the biblical worldview is true and the naturalistic world view embraced by the scientific and academic elite is unequivocally false. In fact, given what I know, I can’t even begin to see how it could possibly be true. Nonetheless, when I reflect on my own predisposition toward the possibility of experiencing overtly supernatural phenomena whether demonic, angelic, or miraculous intervention by God, I think my mind has been conditioned not to think of these things as actually possible by the naturalistic presuppositions all around us that are now deeply embedded in our western society. I think, in spite of our consciously adopted convictions such influences can still have an affect on how we perceive things.
    Maybe that is not true in your case. The reason I thought it might be the case is because those who hold to a naturalistic world view and are in positions of influence in scientific and academic institutions also tend to dismiss NDEs as like a “carnival side show”. It is easy to adopt the same attitude as the credentialed professionals in the scientific and academic community. You have to keep in mind that their analysis and resulting conclusions are going to be highly influenced by their naturalistic presuppositions. If they admit that human beings can retain their identity and continue to exist consciously post mortem apart from their physical body then their whole world view falls apart. It is extremely difficult to seriously consider evidence with such dire implications for one’s entire worldview.

    You are in the same situation as the naturalist on this particular issue. Though you do not share with them a naturalistic understanding of reality at large, you nonetheless are committed to a materialist understanding of human beings and your worldview also hangs in the balance, because you are so convinced that dualism is incompatible with biblical teaching that Christianity would be proved false if dualism were proved true.

  42. Greg

    Glenn,
    I wrote this response in Word and when I went to paste it in I realized it is way too lengthy. Please forgive my back to back post. From here on out I’ll try to be more concise and at least keep my comments within the limits of a single post. I just want to respond to a couple things you said and then I am going to have to do some serious homework before I have anything else worthwhile to say. As I said to Jim above I am largely ignorant of the biblical case for physicalism.

    “I don’t agree that if we change our minds on some issue that Scripture speaks to, we can legitimately just change our interpretation of Scripture while keeping our integrity intact.”

    Sure we can, if we are persuaded by evidence and if a legitimate case can be made that our new interpretation is consistent with scripture. I think you share my view that YEC is false. Lets say I used to think that the bible taught that God created the world in six literal 24 hour days about six to ten thousand years ago. Then after being exposed to compelling scientific evidence that contradicts that view, I go back to the text and after carefully considering it discover that the text does not actually demand the YEC view. I thought it did initially based on the text alone but then evidence outside of the text alerted me to the fact that something was wrong with my interpretation. It is perfectly legitimate to let what we learn from God’s general revelation in the world around us inform our decision about how to correctly interpret a text of scripture. I agree with you that Scripture is not infinitely malleable so there certainly are limits. Ultimately, if God is the author of scripture it will not contradict anything we discover in his created order if we interpret it at he intended it.

    “Scripture has a meaning, and we can’t – not honestly anyway – just declare that it means something else because we’ve changed our mind on the basis of science.”

    I agree wholeheartedly.

    “True, we might have misread it, and it’s fair enough to go back to the text and ask if we have been mistaken or not. But I do not believe dualism is a biblical view. I think the Scripture supports materialism about human beings. Consequently, I think my integrity requires me to say that any plausible argument for dualism about human beings is also an argument for the falsity of Scripture.”

    Based on my knowledge of the Scriptures I have a hard time seeing how you could possibly be so absolutely certain of your view. I can see how it might be possible to make a persuasive case that physicalism is more consistent with scripture than dualism and therefore you hold to physicalism because it appears to be the better interpretation and is thus more likely to be true. I’m good with that. But what you are saying is much stronger. You seem to be saying that dualism is absolutely unequivocally irreconcilable with biblical teaching. I find that very hard to believe. That strikes me like the hard nosed approach that many Young Earthers take in their interpretation of the text. Their intentions are good, that is, not to compromise their integrity and to hold fast to their commitment to the reliability of the text. But alas their approach is misguided. They have confused the inerrancy of scripture with the inerrancy of their interpretation.

  43. “Sure we can, if we are persuaded by evidence and if a legitimate case can be made that our new interpretation is consistent with scripture.”

    Well no, we sure cannot. In context, I am denying that we can just decide that Scripture means something else because somebody has proven that something we thought was biblical is false. And we can’t do that with integrity.

    What you’re saying is, we can if there is a good case that really, Scripture teaches this new claim after all. But I think I already anticipated this. As I said: “Now, if they also came up with a new and interesting case that dualism is more biblical, that would be something. But thus far I think the case for that claim is weak. Realising this is what caused me to give up dualism.”

    You say: ” You seem to be saying that dualism is absolutely unequivocally irreconcilable with biblical teaching.”

    If you recall, I said that the case that Scripture teaches dualism is “weak.” Weak enough that I have no choice but to reject it. I avoid the language you are using, so I didn’t say, for example, that “their conclusion is unequivocally irreconcilable with biblical teaching.” But I do believe it is contrary to biblical teaching. Consequently, I ought to say that if these folks could actually demonstrate that dualism is true, somehow, then the teaching of Scripture is false. Once more, though, I would not say “the teaching of Scripture is unequivocally false.” I have a fair amount of confidence that Scripture does not teach dualism and is opposed to it, so if these guys have shown that dualism is true, I should have a fair amount of confidence that the Bible got it wrong.

    As for the ongoing defence of your concern that I have a naturalistic bias, I’m not sure what I could tell you to convince you that this isn’t the case, especially when it was Scripture rather than science that caused me to change my mind about this.

    [And yes…. back-to-back posts are strongly discouraged. I’ve edited previous comments of yours to merge them into one.]

  44. Greg

    What evidence from NDE’s could in principle be strong enough to convince you of dualism? For example some cases purport that the individual recollected specific verifiable information about things and events that it is physically impossible for them to have observed unless their conscious center of perception was outside of their body during the NDE. To my mind these particular well documented cases either prove dualism or they are fabrications. It seems a stretch to say that all of them are fabrications but I have no way of knowing that with certainty. What do you think? Is there a third possibility that I’m missing?

    • I don’t want to get ahead of myself, so I’ll wait until I’ve had the chance to digest the material I’ve got here waiting for me to read.

    • Jeremy Mead

      So i am reading this years later and probably no one will ever see it, but i do want to add a question.
      Why does anyone think NDEs are any different than that other well known unconscious human experience we call dreaming?
      The mind while sleeping juggles data in all sorts of ways. I see no reason why the mind cannot put incoming information, experience and stored knowledge together to create a 3rd person perspective of looking down on your own body or apparently entering the gates of heaven or any of the various NDEs. How is this any different from regular dreaming apart from being traumatically unconscious rather than having simply gone to sleep? My opinion is that it is viewed differently mostly because we want it to be different or assume it somehoe must be, not because it actually is.

  45. Greg

    Fair enough. I look forward to hearing what you think after you have digested the material. I think you’ll find that no conclusions regarding dualism can be drawn from the vast majority of NDE’s. However, there are a significant number that cannot be easily dismissed especially those where corroborated consciousness continues during a period of up to 3 hours with a flat EEG. There are even cases that corroborate consciousness after biological death has occurred because the person having the NDE reported information that they learned from a deceased loved one that they could not have obtained otherwise. Of course the devil is in the details so you’d have to scrutinize each case to rule out the likelihood of embellishment or fabrication. I am largely trusting the analysis of Habermas an Moreland because I know that intellectual honest is very important to both of them. However they do have a bias toward dualism.

    One last thought in regard to your comment about NDE’s being like a “carnival side show”. I’ll admit that there are a lot of wild reports that could give one that impression and there are no doubt some occult influences going on with some of this stuff. However, the same sort of situation is true surrounding accounts of the miraculous. A lot of miracle claims are embellished or fabricated but that does not mean that all miracle accounts are false. And while guys like Benny Hinn are like carnival sideshows that does not mean that all claims of miraculous healings are like carnival sideshows. Some are legit and I am convinced the same is true of NDEs that corroborate the fact that human consciousness can continue apart from the physical body.

  46. Jack

    Very quick question, what’s your interpretation of the verses where it says Man was made in the image and likeness of Elohiym?

  47. johan

    what about to the ”breath of the beast” I found some post new concept about this ”666” it represent a person who accept devils spirit as a life breath . what is your comment on it . I am on materialist view .

    Devil’s spirit as a breath form
    (666)
    Chapter one
    Introduction
    Revelation 13 the whole chapter deals a mental or a psychic phenomenon conducted by evils spirit at the end of the day collectively as well as individually. In related to the other parts of the bible we will discover these facts. According to Revelation chapter 13 as an individual case people of the world at the end of the day will have three major categories (1) the worshippers of the best; those who accept a devils spirit as breath of life or to some extent those who acquired like devils personality, (2) the sailed people by the breath of the best those who could not able to accept a devils sprint as breath of life or those who got in to a psychotic reaction with devils spirit and(3) those who live in the fear of God or those who live in their natural psyche or GOD’S sprint as breath of life (the deist)
    When we read carefully the book of revelation in light of Rev Chapter 13 same words and concepts of the chapter are repeated in the consecutive chapter.’’ those who worships the beast and his image, and takes the mark on his forehead or his hand’’. ‘’those who had not worshiped the beast or his image and had refused to receive his mark on their forehead or hand’’. Those who had conquered the beast and his image ‘’those who would not worshiped the beast or his image and would not takes the mark on his forehead or his hand’’. Read these versus (Rev 14:9-12 Rev 15:2-4 Rev 16:2 Rev 16:10-11 Rev 19:20 Rev 20:4-6). This is therefore, envisioning the number not as a code to be broken, but a symbol to be understood. Seven is a number of completeness and is associated with the divine. Whereas, six is number of-incomplet and the three sixes are “inherently incomplete”. The number is therefore suggestive that this number represents an individual’s incomplete or immature spiritual state. This “666” number is nothing a miracle by itself but it simply represent a person who accept a devil’s sprit as breath of life.
    With a rough reading of Rev 13:3-10 the first beast using the power, throne, and great authority of the dragon the beast had launched an extensive and brutal operation to the people of the world at collective level aiming in the first place to be healed his mortal wound and to make the people of the

    world to worship the dragon and eventually people of the world to worship himself as well .by this the first beast ended its operation and transferred his authority to The Second Beast then the first beast turned into the next step operation which is for long term operation at individual level aiming to, in the first place to become breath and then to be worshiped, if not possible to slain that person .
    Rev 13:15 it say And it was allowed to give br

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