John
W. Cooper,
Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the
Monism-Dualism Debate, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990, 262 pp., $16.95
(paper), ISBN 0-8028-0435-7.
Like most forms of dualism, body-soul
dualism has fallen out of favor of late. It
lacks currency. It lacks class.
It lacks credibility among most academic and scientific types, especially
among those whom Walker Percy once described as "brain engineers,
neuropharmacologists, and chemists of the synapses."
No one wants to be caught dead being a dualist.
Until he realizes that this may be the only way of catching himself dead.
Or unless he or she has qualms about ignoring the authority of the
Church, which has traditionally always interpreted Scripture as teaching the
survival of the soul and the future resurrection of the body.
Hence, the dilemma: body-soul dualism appears to be a religiously
necessary but scientifically untenable tenet of the Christian faith.
For those of us stuck with that
dilemma, John Cooper furnishes an attractive way out.
He disarms the opponents of body-soul dualism by casting out all of its
most troublesome demons and then by agreeing with them that human nature, after
all, is a "holistic" unity. He
advocates a "holistic dualism." Is this a contradiction in terms? Evidently not; for one may be "holistic" in a functional
sense, which recognizes, for example, that the human mind and brain function as
a unity, without supposing that they reduce to one metaphysical substance.
Such functional "holism," is compatible with
"dualism," even when understood in an ontological sense.
Cooper thus provides the exhilarating prospect of permitting us to remain
properly and fashionably "holistic" about human nature while yet
affirming the "dualism" implicit in Scripture and tradition.
Cooper's book offers a detailed survey
of biblical anthropology and careful analysis of current psychological,
physiological, and philosophical theories.
It sketches the historical background of the controversy between
traditional Christian anthropology and its modern critics; presents an
exegetical case for "holistic dualism" in the Old and New Testaments,
as well as in inter-testamental Judaism; and offers detailed rejoinders to
practical, theological, scientific and philosophical objections to body-soul
dualism. The book concludes with a
comparative analysis of the anthropological theories of John Cobb, Richard
Swinburne, John Paul II (only the second pope in history trained as a
philosopher), and Herman Dooyeweerd. Alvin
Plantinga calls Cooper's case for an ontological dualism that is functionally
holistic "a much-needed antidote to the facile endorsements of mind-body
monism so characteristic of contemporary theology and philosophy."
Why has body-soul dualism fallen out of
favor? The beginning of an answer
might be found in the influence of the materialistic and monistic anthropologies
of Hobbes and Spinoza in early modern philosophy.
But probably more decisive was the rapid acceptance of the Darwinian
theory of evolution, which began undermining belief in the soul as a distinct
entity in the 19th century. Brain
physiologists and psychiatrists also began detecting a direct causal relation
between brain functions and states of consciousness. Experimental psychologists, such as William James and Wilhelm
Wundt, no longer took themselves to be dealing with the operations of an
incorporeal entity; and even before B.F. Skinner, John Watson developed a
behavioristic psychology that denied the significance of consciousness
altogether.
The growing reaction against dualism
was also reflected in historical theology, biblical studies, and in the popular
outlook of many Christians that Cooper calls "dualophobic."
Theologians such as Adolf von Harnack began speculating whether Greek
dualism had not overcome Hebrew holism and left its indelible dichotomizing
imprint on Christian theology. Reflecting
this trend in biblical studies was the controversial 1950 essay by Oscar
Cullmann disjunctively entitled "Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of
the Body?" challenging what he regarded as the "Platonic"
traditional reading of the New Testament. Moreover,
in the minds of many Christians, the dualism of body and soul has come to be
linked, almost inseparably, to a host of false dichotomies and harmful
separations. It has been linked,
for example, to the separation of nature from grace, secular from sacred,
physical from spiritual, social gospel from personal gospel, and has been
implicated in a litany of spiritual, psychological, pedagogical, social and
cultural evils, including a false, "neutral" conception of secular
culture, the destruction of the environment, slavery, male dominance and sexism.
The first major step in Cooper's
response to this collective challenge is directed against the Harnackian claim
that Hebrew monism stands ineluctably opposed to Greek dualism. Despite the "holistic" tenor of Hebrew
anthropology, there are at least two reasons why it may not be construed as a
(perhaps pre-philosophical) species of monism. First, the creation references offer an indisputably composite
description of human nature. God
breathes the animating "breath" of life (ruach, nephesh)
into what was formed from the "dust of the ground."
Second, human life is not regarded as ceasing at death, but as having a
continued ghost-like existence in Sheol, Abaddon, or (in the Septuagint)
Hades. If Solomon had been
versed in Greek philosophy, Cooper speculates, he might have been more
sympathetic to Aristotle than either Plato or Democritus, except for the
difficulty Aristotelianism presents for belief in an individual afterlife (p.
56). In fact, Cooper says, what
Solomon could have really used is a combination of Aristotle and Augustinian
Platonism such as we later find in St. Thomas Aquinas (p. 80).
Cooper concludes his survey of biblical
and inter-testimental literature by arguing that the texts as a whole support
the traditional dualistic reading with less ambiguity than any other
alternative. For example, New
Testament passages that support a future resurrection without excluding John
Hick's alternative of possible extinction and future recreation nevertheless rule
out an immediate resurrection; and passages that support continued existence
after death without excluding the alternative of immediate resurrection (held by
Wofhart Pannenberg, Karl Barth, and Hans Küng) nevertheless rule out
extinction and recreation. Hence,
the traditional view comes out ahead.
Furthermore, the alternative of
immediate resurrection actually fails to avoid dualism, since it entails the
continuous identity of one person in two bodies: the same person is separated
from a dead, earthly body in the same instant that he or she is joined to the
resurrected body. And the
alternative of extinction and recreation fails to fully engage or resolve the
intractable problems of personal identity.
Would a person who was completely recreated after being annihilated be
the same person? Advocates of this
position, says Cooper, confuse the epistemic category of being recognized as
someone with the ontological category of actually being self-identical.
Exact similarity, such as one might find in a clone, is not the same
thing as numerical identity. Such questions, as Cooper notes, are not merely academic, but
have a direct bearing on such pastoral concerns as the assurance of believers in
their personal future resurrection.
How does Cooper respond to those "dualophobic"
souls who link soul-body dualism to a multitude of religious, social and
ecological evils? By drawing some
badly-needed distinctions: body-soul dualism is not equivalent or even
correlative to (1) the religious dualism between a sacred religious
sphere and a "value-free" secular one, or (2) the axiological
dualism between mundane menial activities and nobler "spiritual" ones,
or (3) the functional dualism between a ruling rational faculty and
unruly inclinations, for example, or (4) the social dualism between male
and female, black and white, cultured and pedestrian, and the like.
There is no reason why a holistic dualist cannot be as opposed to such
wrong-headed dualizations as any monist.
To the challenge of modern brain
physiology and psychology, Cooper responds, first, by noting that scientists are
by no means certain that a complete correlation between brain events and
specific states of consciousness actually exists; and, second, by arguing that
such a correlation, even if it could be proved, would not demonstrate that it
was unilateral--between brain events as causes and conscious states as effects.
A person can generate complex brain occurrences by forming a concept,
meditating on God, or worrying about an exam.
Hence, the causality postulated on the basis of a pattern of regular
association moves in both directions.
Cooper acknowledges that the available
scientific and biblical data are capable of various interpretation even under
the umbrella of "holistic dualism."
Indeed they are compatible with a variety of philosophical theories,
including dualistic interactionism (ranging from a "robust"
Cartesianism to a "softer" Aristotelian-Thomism), dualistic
parallelism, dual aspect monism, idealism, and even a qualified materialism.
Traditionally, of course, some theories are easier to reconcile with the
entire corpus of Christian faith than others.
Cooper himself singles out four
theories for special attention as credible models of holistic dualism.
These include (1) the dual aspect monism of the process theologian John
Cobb; (2) the dualistic interactionism of the Oxford philosopher Richard
Swinburne, which Cooper places with some qualifications in the
Augustinian-Cartesian tradition; (3) the Lublin Thomism of John Paul II, which
is articulated in terms of European existential phenomenology but based on neo-Thomist
metaphysics; and (4) the Dutch neo-Calvinist transcendental philosophy of Herman
Dooyeweerd.
Not
least valuable about Cooper's approach is his willingness to leave room for
different theories and new developments. As
Robert Gundry has stated, he does not try to tie up every loose end.
Furthermore, he avoids the rut of the specialist by willingly and capably
addressing questions of biblical exegesis, philosophy, psychology, science and
popular culture with even-handed competence.
Space does not permit me to discuss his fascinating analysis of the
psychology of near-death experiences or specific rejoinders to such objections
as that the Bible depicts the dead as bodily beings, not immaterial spirits; or
that dualism is a result of the Fall; or that dualism implies that the whole
person does not die; or that at death we pass out of time, and, hence, there is
no intermediate state. But I can
assure you that his account is cogent and illuminating.
Philip Blosser
Lenoir-Rhyne College
Hickory, North Carolina
Copyright © 1991 The Thomist Press. All rights reserved.
Revised: December 20, 2002