Apologetics
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 60, No. 2 – Spring 2018
Managing Editor: W. Madison Grace II
By Joshua Farris. New York: Routledge, 2017. 212 pages. Hardcover, $105.00.
What is human nature according to the Bible? This question is the central question being considered in The Soul of Theological Anthropology. Joshua Farris notes that Cartesian Dualism is often said to be unbiblical because of its denigration of the body and preference for the mind. Farris believes such a claim is unwarranted and wishes to defend a Cartesian Substance Dualism as faithful to Scripture. Farris notes that a successful anthropological theory accomplishes the following: (1) accounts for a broad contour of scriptural narrative (like the creeds), (2) accounts for scriptural teaching on the significance of the body and the persistence of human life after death and before resurrection, (3) maintains relational and teleological properties, (4) coheres with science, and (5) provides resources to relate to sin and eschatology (1–2).
Farris begins by arguing that one has direct access to his nature and this access intuitively reveals that he is more than just a body. One persists through time, but his body does not; therefore, it seems that one is not to be identified with his body but with a simple immaterial thing (soul) with complex mental abilities. The most likely metaphysical explanation for this soul is the existence of a personal God who bears marks of similarities with the physical world both as a mind and as the causal agent of the universe’s existence (18–21). Human beings are simple souls whose concepts and ability to conceive are tied to his subject-hood. Knowledge and self-consciousness are coterminous, so one co-exists with his thoughts. Material things cannot have concepts nor the persistence conditions for concepts (24–26). Thus, a substance view gives the most adequate understanding of the biblical data on human personhood. Human beings have the image of God that is sustained in them even after the Fall. This image is the grounds for mankind’s purpose (to love and enjoy God forever), but it is in need of repair and restoration. This privation (loss of being) requires an ontic relation to Christ in order to restore the lost being and transform it into something immortal and perfect. All this argumentation implies the existence and endurance of an immaterial substance as the core part of a human person (34–39).
Farris argues for what he calls Emergent Creationism: the claim that the soul is created by God in conjunction with the existence of the body so that both body and soul are causally necessary for each other (76). The soul cannot function or come into existence without the body, nor the body without the soul. The soul is created by God, not produced by physical substance, but it is not a special, miraculous event. It is part of the natural, causal workings of the world.
This view is different from pure Special Creation theory, where God creates the soul and then attaches it to the body without consideration of the body; however, Farris’s view is a form of special creation. This view maintains the goodness of the body as a crucial aspect of Christianity as seen in the doctrines of creation, incarnation, and resurrection. This benefit tends to be lacking in more simplistic substance dualist theories (98–101).
Farris argues that Emergent Creationism is consistent with scientific understandings of nature and the body, whereas pure materialist accounts and emergent substance accounts are not. Those theories cannot explain how the mind came into existence, when it came into existence, or how it is related to the body. Farris also argues that Emergent Creationism can explain original sin since our physical bodies are united to Adam’s sinful state and our souls emerge with God’s help out of that shared physical state. Thus, the soul is vitally connected to the body (and its sinful state) and not just a separate substance. Farris also claims that an interim period of existence between death and resurrection, as taught in Scripture as well as the resurrection itself, naturally implies substance dualism. Lastly, Farris claims that the need for a loss of the corrupt body in order to gain a portion of the beatific vision, as well as resurrection to gain the full vision, as argued by Aquinas, implies a dualist approach. Thus, Cartesian dualism is faithful to the scriptural witness.
The book serves as an adequate defense of the dualist position and makes strong theological arguments for the acceptance of a type of substance dualism by Christians. There are some questions that come to mind when considering Farris’s arguments. When God creates the soul out of the body, does the sin nature migrate to the soul or does it only corrupt the body? Further, if the sin nature does affect the soul but does not migrate from the body, does God create a sinful soul? It is not entirely evident where the sin nature resides or its extent in Farris’s account. This question extends to the imago dei as well. Where does the divine image reside—the body, the soul, both? Does God create the image when he creates the soul, does it migrate from the body, or does the soul lack the image? Farris could argue for something like a migratory stance on each of these issues or that the body’s state affects (but does not modify in itself) the functions of the soul. More could be said to flesh out these issues given the uniqueness of each substance and how they connect to each other.
