Every Christian who decides on a stance to take on the mind-body issue is going to have to live with the fact that there will be certain “problem texts” in the Bible that appear to conflict with the position they take. As a physicalist, I think there is a very small number of such texts for my view, and I think there are plausible explanations for all of them (for example Jesus’ words to the criminal on the cross Luke 23:43, which I discussed recently). What one hopes to do is to settle on a view that has fewer problems than all others, problems that have an explanation in sight.
I think that traditional Cartesian/platonic dualism has a real problem, therefore, when it comes to 1 Corinthians 15, as I think it contains a problem for dualism – a problem with no real solution that I can see. The chapter is a decent size, so I won’t reproduce it here, but go ahead and read it first to make sure I’m representing what it says faithfully. The subject is the resurrection of the dead, and it arises because some of those in the church in Corinth had said that there will be no resurrection. The Apostle Paul makes a number of comments on this, one of which concerns my point here. In doing so he indicates that he cannot possibly have been a dualist.
v 12ff: Paul notes the disastrous consequences for the doctrine of salvation if there is no resurrection of the dead. “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.” The upshot of this is that “you are still in your sins,” and there is no salvation and no resurrection for us. If this is true, said Paul, then we are the “most miserable” of people.
v 20ff: Having established this, once that we acknowledge that Christ has risen, we know that the dead will rise. For as part of Christ’s reign and his victory (obtained through his own resurrection), he will eventually defeat death. “ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (vv 25-26).
v 29ff: But there is still a further argument up Paul’s sleeve. If this were not going to happen – if there is no future resurrection for us, then a couple of things arise. Firstly, why do you get baptised for the dead? (i.e. their behaviour shows that they themselves assume the resurrection). More to the point if there’s no resurrection, then this life is all there is. If there’s no future resurrection, we have no future hope at all. Why invest in the future when there isn’t one? Here’s the way Paul put it (vv 30-32):
Why am I in danger every hour? I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
Here is what I want you to notice: If dualism, as held by many Christians and as held by many Gentiles in Paul’s day, is true, then there is life after death with or without the resurrection.
Christian dualists will tell you that when the body dies, the soul (of the believer) goes to be with the Lord in heaven (or paradise, depending on who you’re asking). This is a wonderful place, even though there will still be a resurrection of the dead in the future when the soul will again become embodied. But the point is, even if there were not a resurrection, there would still be some hope of a future life.
Now look again at Paul’s point, quoted above. He is asking why he would even bother to risk his life for the Gospel if there’s no bodily resurrection. The dualist’s answer would be: Because you would still have heaven to hope for, which in itself is wonderful. But Paul supposes no such thing. He goes a step further: If there’s no bodily resurrection, then we may as well just live it up now. Eat, drink, and be merry, because if there’s no resurrection, then when you die that’s the end. His argument works if and only if we do not survive death in any way until the resurrection of the dead. If we do – if there is even a whiff of dualism and a heavenly intermediate state in Paul’s theology, then a switched on Corinthian could have immediately deflated his argument.
If you’re a Christian and you advocate dualism, and you say that your soul goes to be with the Lord at death, then you’re robbing Paul of this argument for the resurrection. As I type this, I’m reminded of the fact that William Tyndale made this exact same observation. For those who don’t know, William Tyndale was a martyr who made the first translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into English. He got into a written dispute with Thomas More over the question of the soul’s immortality. More claimed that when the body dies, the soul of the believer goes to be with Christ. Tyndale immediately saw how this gutted Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 15 of any force, and replied sarcastically, as though rebuking the Apostle:
Nay, Paul, thou art unlearned; go to Master More, and learn a new way. We be not most miserable, though we rise not again; for our souls go to heaven as soon as we be dead, and are there in as great joy as Christ that is risen again.
William Tyndale, Answer to Thomas More’s Dialogue (Cambridge University Press, 1850), 118. (download this book HERE)
Like William Tyndale, I just don’t see how the argument against dualism from 1 Corinthians 15 can be successfully addressed. Your suggestions are welcome.
Glenn Peoples
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Tags: Apostle Paul, dualism, intermediate state, New Testament Studies, physicalism, resurrection
I suppose a dualist could read this and conclude that the only reason for an intermediate non-physical existence between death and resurrection is just as a bridge between the two. Deny the resurrection and this period for preservation of the self between the two periods is of much less use. If that’s a problem for Cartesian Dualists, I prefer what little I understand of emergence dualism anyhow.
Do we even know what it is that those whom Paul was responding to believed about the afterlife besides the fact that they doubted the resurrection? Whether they were Jewish or Gentile, N.T. Wright has made an excellent case that there was a wide variety of beliefs.
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That said though, I admit I may not be analyzing this as closely as you are.
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I once posed this argument, and someone brought up a very good point:
Other texts like 2 Corinthians 5:9 indicate dualism is true, so 1 Corinthians 15 must not actually teach otherwise
(Sounds familiar, doesn’t it…)
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Actually though, one guy did suggest something like the following:
He acknowledged that 1 Corinthians 15 does seem to say no resurrection = no afterlife.
His response regarded how the resurrection makes the afterlife possible. One of Paul’s focus’ is that without a resurrection Jesus never would have risen from the dead, and thus we’d be unforgiven. His suggestion was that without the forgiveness the resurrection brings, our immaterial souls would not go to be with the Lord, but would just stay dead. Thus, it isn’t that we need to be resurrected ourselves to live on, we just need the resurrection to be true so that Jesus could rise from the dead, giving us forgiveness and the ability to live on one way or another.
This does go against what the natural implications of the passage are, but I don’t think his alternative explanation can be logically disproven.
NOTE: when I saw the obvious implications his reasoning would have regarding eternal punishment, I discovered he was unsure but leaned towards annihilationism (which you’d think would be a given since he claimed that no forgiveness = no existence). I recommended your works to him – with my commentary of course XD
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Joey, Paul does make the point that without the resurrection, we would not be forgiven. However…
Firstly, Paul already made that point in verses 12ff. He then made another, different point, about the last enemy, and now he’s making still another point, namely, no resurrection = no after life.
Secondly, it’s false that, given dualism, or souls would just remain dead if we were not forgiven. Surely they would still live on, but they would not go to heaven.
Thirdly, forgiveness was obtained by the death of Christ. Christ’s resurrection makes possible our own resurrection. Theoretically, if dualism were true, then we could still have forgiveness and eternal life without the resurrection of Jesus. However it wouldn’t be physical, since Jesus would not have conquered physical death. If we say that the defeat of physical death is necessary for our eternal life, then we are admitting that you can’t survive physical death in a non-physical way. It doesn’t really matter if you don’t buy this third argument however, because the first two are enough.
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Joey, as with many scriptures, the way we perceive our existence will inevitably slant our comprehension of those scriptures. Consequently, 2 Cor 5:9 might support dualism to a dualist, but it doesn’t if you hold to physicalism.
Paul is writing from a Hebrew physicalist point of view, so the ‘eternal house in heaven’ (2 Cor 5:1) is not somewhere we go to dwell immediately after death, but more a picture of a new resurrection body awaiting bestowal upon the believer on Christ’s return. A bit like his line in Eph 2:6 that we are raised and seated in heavenly realms – a present reality drawn from a future assurance.
Similarly, in verse 9, Paul is so sure that his resurrection will cause his being at home (in total unity) with Jesus. Since Jesus is returning to this earth, our location will not change, just our condition, which becomes eternal.
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I think that the pervasive dualist view has robbed the gospel of its joy to such a serious degree. In Luke 10:20, Jesus states that the disciples’ joy should not be found in the amazing miracles performed or the submission of enemy spiritual powers encountered by them; instead their joy should be that their names are written in heaven (Rev 22:27 calls it the Lamb’s book of life).
If dualism were true, and my ‘spirit’ lives forever in one of 2 destinations, my joy is now severely tempered. The book of life now has a watery appeal, nice though it is, for sure.
I am only just beginning to fathom and articulate how my joy at being a believer in Jesus Christ is so much more clear, desirable, beautiful if I understand my name being written in heaven is evidence of the ONLY means to exist forever. No universalism, no purgatory, no outer darkness for the immoral, no eternal torment, no intermediate state, just simple and unbridled joy at the knowledge that my physical being will be restored to a state of immortality through faith in the One who has done it all already and, at whose return, I will be transformed.
Dour Christianity, or the many examples of false, temporary joy generated through man-made sources, have done little to impact the world for Christ. It’s time for authentic rejoicing to break forth through a deep understanding of the resurrection.
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“Amen” to that, James
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A hylemorphic dualist could accept the necessity of the resurrection without a problem, for in the Thomistic view the form of a person lies in having a body and a soul. No body, no person (or no soul, no person).
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Yeah, but Thomas isn’t that straightforward. For example, he believes that something survives after death and before resurrection, and thatthis something is conscious, capable of thought, and culpable. I know that according to the terminology used, it’s not a person, but I fail to see how it can be relevantly distinguished from a person. In other words, whether you call it a person or not, you can still enjoy eternal life without a resurrection.
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Good Day to All:
Just a quick point, as perhaps I am missing the issue, but here it is:
It seems that the entire assessment of Paul’s statement in this blog post misses the obvious counter-point that the reason that Paul tells us to eat, drink and be merry is because if there is no resurrection, then death has not been wholly conquered. And thus, if death has not been wholly conquered, then salvation is not complete and this leads to the issue that people could not be saved (within the Christian theological framework) and would thus be consigned to hell and eternal death. So Paul tells us to eat and be merry if no resurrection because once we die, it is hell for all of us.
Take care,
RD Miksa
radosmiksa.blogspot.com
theargumentfromevolution.blogspot.com
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RD Miksa, it’s true that without the resurrection then death has not been fully conquered – because physical death has not been overcome. But the rest of what you say doesn’t seem to follow. Why should the fact that physical death has not been overcome, within a dualist framework, lead to a denial of salvation, and actually to damnation? Since you can surely conceive of living forever in heaven without a body (and thus not being damned), why do you think that the failure of a body to be resurrected mean that you are automatically or necessarily damned?
Now, as a physicalist of course I have to say that we cannot have eternal life with Christ with no resurrection. But if I were a dualist, I certainly wouldn’t be logically committed to that view.
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What makes us think that Paul (or any of the Biblical authors) had a better understanding of the mind/body problem than us?
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Woland, I don’t think for a moment that Paul had a particularly well informed and explained theory of how the mind and brain are related. That’s a highly technical question. He probably had some basic beliefs, and really I think that’s all we need in order to say that he was a dualist, or a physicalist (whichever is the case).
What I do think, however, is that Paul held to some theological convictions about which he could have been quite well informed, and those theological convictions could only have been true if dualism is false. In other words, I don’t say that Paul gave any carefully explained theory of mind. Instead, I am inferring propositions about the philosophy of mind from what Paul said about theology.
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Glenn, you mentioned in your opening sentence that there exist certain problem texts for physicalism. I was reading 1 Thess 5 today and verse 23 seems to give the clear impression that Paul thinks of the human condition as body (soma), soul (psyche) and spirit (pneuma). Is Paul soaked in Greek dualism after all, or can we take his Hebrew comprehension of man in these 3 words as physical person, emotional/mental life and, lastly, connection with God’s Spirit? How would you explain his statement from a physicalist point of view?
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Really should’ve Googled before posting. https://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521859448&ss=exc starts to unpack my question above, and strongly supportive of a physicalist understanding. Shame it’s just an excerpt.
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James, my answer is basically that different words don’t necessarily mean that the writer must be thinking of different substances. otherwise we’d have to believe in four part people, because Jesus said that we should love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. They are really all just aspects (rather than “parts”) of the one thing.
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Hi Glenn. Not sure if you’re still responding to comments on this thread months later, but I’m listening to your archived podcast of your discussion on Unbelievable about physicalism, and after that I wanted to see if I could find out more about what you believed, and it brought me here.
I’m not a trained philosopher, but here’s my understanding of 1Cor 15
Suppose that we do consist of a body and (non physical) soul.
Suppose we need the body to experience physical things like time, space, our senses, and the non physical soul to experience reason, qualia, relate to God etc.
Then when we die, the body rots, the soul remains, but a soul alone isn’t a person. It’s like the seed of a person. It doesn’t experience anything. When the soul is integrated into a new body, it once again becomes a person, and can once again experience the world it finds itself in (the new one).
That scenario seems to fit well with what Paul says. In physicalism, what is analogous to the seed in Paul’s analogy?
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Colin, if that were true (and I obviously don’t think it is), Paul would still be wrong to say that we need the resurrection to experience future life (which is what I take him to say). If you’re right, then we only need the resurrection to experience future life in the fullest possible way. But even without the resurrection, it would still be false to say that we “perish” forever when we die.
As for the seed analogy, Paul uses it to refer to what goes into the ground, so I would say: It refers to our body. In context this seems clear as well, since Paul is using it to describe the fact that we will rise again like a plant that rises from a seed that goes intot he ground, but we will be somehow different.
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Hi Glenn.
Thanks for replying.
I guess what I was trying to propose was that it would be impossible to experience anything without a body, as experiences require change, and change requires time. So while you’re just a soul, no time goes by, and nothing is experienced.
With regard to the seed being one’s body, I remember being taught at one point that the actual physical matter of your body would be used by God in your resurrection. This raises serious problems, so I’m guessing you don’t believe that our current bodies don’t actually physically contribute to our resurrection? But if not, then what is there to link our future selves to our present selves. What can you say about the Glenn Peoples that God will create from scratch in the resurrection, that links him in any way to who you are now?
Here’s a thought experiment. If God were to create not one, but two copies of resurrected Glenn, which one would be you?
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That’s interesting, Colin.
Are you suggesting that Paul, for example, did not anticipate experiencing the presence of God in heaven after he died?
I find the comments about time to be a little bizarre. So there’s no experience between death and resurrection? No consciousness of anything? How is that different from what a physicalist would say?
As for the thought experiment, if God created two copies of me, then neither of them would be me since they are both copies. I actually discussed that issue back in my podcast series called “In Search of the Soul,” part 4 of that series (Episode 32 in the podcast).
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I think I’m in agreement with you, that I’m proposing that we experience nothing between death and resurrection. But that’s not to say that nothing persists.
A crude analogy might be to think of the body/soul to be like a cellphone and a sim card.
The difference between what I’m saying and what a physicalist might say, is that the physicalist asserts that no part of the person exists during the time between death and resurrection.
Do you believe that some of the matter that comprises your current body will be used/required to create your resurrection body?
I used the word ‘copy’ because it seems to me like your concept of the resurrection could be reasonably described as ‘God creates a fresh copy of Glenn, who no longer exists except in God’s memory’ It is a copy in the sense that it shares nothing with the original except a similarity of design and specification.
If I were in the business of restoring old paintings, and I was given some famous painting that was severely damaged, and my solution was to memorize the painting, completely destroy it, get a new canvas and new paint, and to then recreate the painting from scratch – surely you’d agree that I did not ‘resurrect’ the old painting, I copied it.
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PS I’ll go look for that podcast series now, maybe it will help you to avoid having to repeat yourself.
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