0. Introduction
In this paper I shall explain why physicalism is incompatible with the doctrine of resurrection, which is to say that it is metaphysically impossible for both of them to be affirmed consistently.
1. Resurrection, Physicalism and Substance Dualism
Generally, Christians have always affirmed in the doctrine of Bodily Resurrection, which states, in part, that deceased persons will be made to live again in human bodies. (cf. Matt.16:26-27; John 5:28-29; Acts 24:15) Some Christians also profess belief in the doctrine of physicalism, which implies, in part, that human beings consist only of physical matter and do not possess immaterial souls which will survive the death of the body. The distinguishing feature of physicalist theories of mind is the doctrine of mind-body supervenience, the concept that it is impossible for any two things to differ in their mental properties if they are identical in their physical properties. (Kim, 2011, p. 9.)
Cartesian Dualism or Interactionism, is the view that human beings are composed of two parts, a physical body and a non-physical soul, and the soul is what makes us who we are, the soul is our essential part, it is a mental substance which is the subject of our first person qualitative experiences (or qualia).
“Cartesian substance dualism pictures the world as consisting of two independent domains, the mental and the material, each with its own distinctive defining properties... it is metaphysically possible for one domain to exist in the total absence of the other.” (Kim, 1996, p. 15)
On such a theory, our soul interacts with a particular brain therefore if the brain is damaged, the incarnate experience of the soul is affected. At death, these two parts, body and soul, are separated and the soul continues to exist. I shall argue that physicalist theories of mind are incompatible with the doctrine of Resurrection.
I shall define mental events as those events which are described in terms of mental properties. Mental properties are features of consciousness which include purposes, emotions, desires, and beliefs. Mental properties can be known directly by those who have them in a private way. In contrast, physical properties are publicly accessible features of physical substances. They are things such as size, shape, color, and mass. Physical properties are the objects of study in physical sciences such as chemistry, physics and geology. Mental properties are often the subject of study in fields such as psychology and psychotherapy.
2. Personal Identity
What makes you who you are? And what would make any subsequent body yours? If not even one part of someone survives the death of the body, it is very hard to see how any human body which is created thereafter could be the same person.
If my body were destroyed by the explosion of a nuclear bomb, then God could create a new body which was identical to my former body. But that would not make the subsequent body mine. Any subsequent body, although physically similar to the original body, would be a mere copy, reproduction, duplicate or clone of the body that was destroyed.
Many Christians have been cremated, their bodies largely being converted into heat energy. In some cases corpses are consumed in whole or part by plants, which were in turn consumed by animals and humans. Which is to say that the matter which once constituted the body of some deceased person now constitutes the bodies of other living persons.
If nothing survives the death of the body, then what remains to be resurrected? There is nothing. It would be impossible to resurrect any individual human if humans are purely physical beings. This reasoning may be summarized as follows:
1. The doctrine of resurrection necessitates that a person who was formerly dead is provided with a subsequent body that belongs specifically to them. (Premise)
2. To consider any particular body as belonging specifically to a person who was formerly dead, there must be a mental continuity between the person who was formerly dead and their subsequent body. (Premise)
3. Hence, the doctrine of resurrection necessitates a mental continuity between the person who was previously dead and their subsequent body. (From 1, 2)
4. If there is no part of a person which survives the death of their body, then it is impossible to maintain a mental continuity between a person who died and their subsequent body. (Premise)
5. Hence, the doctrine of the resurrection necessitates that there is a part of a person which survives the death of their body that secures mental continuity between the formerly deceased and their subsequent body. (From 3, 4)
6. The only sort of thing that could secure a mental continuity between a formerly deceased person and a subsequent body is a mental substance or soul. (Premise)
7. Therefore, the doctrine of resurrection necessitates the existence of a mental substance or soul, which survives the death of the original body and secures a mental continuity between the formerly deceased person and their subsequent body. (From 1-6)
Premise 1. What does it mean to say that a human body belongs to a particular person? It could not merely mean that some of the matter which comprised the former body now comprises the resurrection body because several bodies might contain the matter which once comprised the body of someone now deceased. For some particular body to belong to a particular person, then the mental events associated with that body must be known by that person necessarily, which is to say they must be known directly.
For example, people may discover that I am angry by the words I say, by my actions or by my facial expressions and actions. These are all publicly accessible ways of knowing that I am angry, but I have a further way of knowing that I am angry, namely, by directly experiencing the anger in question. If I am angry, I know necessarily that I am angry because I am the one who is angry.
Even God could not know that I am angry in the same way that I know that I am angry. God does not know the proposition, “I, Anthony, am angry,” because God is not Anthony, and my being angry does not mean that God is also angry. I would know of my own anger in a way different from everyone else, including God, I would know of it by virtue of it being my anger, via direct experience. So, I know that I am angry necessarily, because I am the one who is angry. Other people do not know this necessarily, because they are not the ones experiencing the anger in question. Hence, for any physical body to belong to a specific person they must have private access to the mental events of that body in the way that I have described. Some particular body belongs to a particular person if the mental events associated with that body are known to them necessarily in the way that I have described.
Premise 2. It will not suffice to say that there is only a physical continuity between some particular corpse and a resurrection body. For instance, if the material from which one corpse was formed might be used to create three new bodies, and those bodies after being brought to life would be three distinct individuals with separate mental experiences, even though their bodies were all formed from the same original corpse.
Another common illustration would be the instance of a cannibal who consumed another person. The atoms which once comprised the unfortunate individual would now become part of the cannibal’s body, therefore, in the resurrection, both individuals will have an equally valid claim to those particular atoms. Furthermore, the bodies of many saints who have once lived were cremated, or otherwise destroyed. The apostle Paul was beheaded, and although some of his bones may have been preserved much of his body is lost, Ignatius of Antioch was eaten alive by lions, Polycarp of Smyrna was burned to death, and countless saints have died in fires, bombings, or were cremated at death. In other words, their original bodies have been decayed or destroyed.
But in the resurrection, their subsequent bodies must belong specifically to them and not to any other person. Such examples show that it is insufficient to have merely a physical continuity between some corpse and a subsequent body, rather there must be a different sort of continuity, a mental continuity. When we say that some particular body is ours we are speaking primarily concerning the mental goings on of that body. In fact, I have argued elsewhere that personal identity over time makes little sense at all if physicalism is true and would be subject to the same paradoxes.
A physicalist might claim that, although the resurrection body will be made of different matter than the original body, it will be the same person because it will have an identical personality, memories, and qualities as the original person. But if I were to die, God might create two or two dozen bodies and give them identical personalities, characteristics, qualities, memories and habits. But which one would be me? They could not all be me. Each of these bodies would have different conscious lives, hence, it is not possible that any of them could be me, and nothing would make one of them more like myself than another. These would be nothing more than an assortment of doppelgangers. The only thing that could make any of some subsequent bodies belong to me is an enduring mental continuity. Merely having identical memories, or personality traits would not ensure such a thing. None of them would be me. What distinguishes such a “resurrection” from “duplication”? It does not matter if the resurrection body merely has the same personality and memory as I had at the time of death—I want it to be me.
Premise 4. Suppose that I have a plastic chess set, and that all of the plastic which constitutes this chess set is destroyed. By destroying all of the matter which constituted the chess set, it would cease to exist entirely. No subsequent plastic chess set could be that same chess set which was destroyed. It is impossible to say that the chess set survived the destruction of all the plastic which constituted it, unless it had some non-plastic part which survived the destruction. (Everitt, 2000, p. 331-347.) Equivalently, if humans simply are their physical bodies, they would cease to exist when their physical body is destroyed unless there were some non-bodily part of the person which survived the death of their body. If there is nothing which survives death then there is nothing to maintain a mental continuity between the resurrection body and the person who was once deceased.
Premise 6. Seeing that mental continuity is vital for resurrection, then there must be some part of a person which survives bodily death which preserves a continuity of consciousness and identity. This part which survives death could not be a physical substance, hence it is a non-physical substance, and since it has mental properties it is a mental substance, and this is what is typically meant by a soul in the Cartesian sense. The term "substance" is used here in the sense of an independently existing thing, the soul might exist independently of the body and vice versa, therefore they are two differing substances for the dualist.
3. Omnipotence and Resurrection
Because this is essentially a theological critique and it is supposed to be God who performs the resurrection, the most immediate objections to the argument must be from the doctrine of omnipotence. I will give a common and expansive definition of omnipotence:
Some agent x is omnipotent if x can perform any action which it does not entail a contradiction to perform.
Most theists would concede that God’s omnipotence is constrained at the very least by the law of non-contradiction, they do not suppose that God can commit suicide, or decide to cease being divine, etc.
It entails a contradiction to suppose that an omnipotent being can resurrect a physicalist creature whose body has been utterly destroyed. Suppose that I build a house with my own hands and it burns to ashes in a great fire. And let us further suppose that after the fire, I see a structure, which looks identical to the house which burned down. In the distance I also see a trusted friend standing there by the house so I asked him what had happened. This trusted friend tells me,
“God himself has miraculously recreated the house that you built. In fact, the house that now stands here, is the very same house which burnt down and ceased to exist!”
I would reply that this deed seems impossible, even for an omnipotent God. It is entirely possible that God can create a perfect replica of the original house, but it would not be that house, the same house I built with my own hands and which was burnt down. This rebuilt house did not exist at the same time as the original house. The earliest moment of its existence would be after the original house burnt down. It would never have known my hammer strokes, my paintbrush strokes, nor was it in the world at the same time as the original house. All of its parts occupy their positions because of God’s actions, not because of my own. I did not build this house, God did. (cf. Van Inwagen, 1978, pp. 118.) My friend responds,
“Ah, but this is that house, God has brought back the very same house which you built and which was burnt down. It is not a replica or a duplicate, it is the exact same house.”
But I admit freely that this seems incoherent to me. I would not know what to make of this claim even though I would wish to believe him. I do not see how it could possibly be true. If, somehow, then God could recreate the exact house that burnt down, surely he could also create two or three, or three hundred houses which were identical to the first. Yet none of them would be the original house. They would all be copies, duplicates, replacements of the original house. Even if God were to gather every atom of the original house and put them in the exact positions they were at before the fire, the various atoms would occupy their position as a result of God’s activity, not mine, it would be a reconstruction. Therefore, once my house has burned down, it is not possible that any future house could be that same house. At this point, my friend has grown tired of my logic-chopping, and he says:
“Ah, I see your objections, but it is that very same house, and it is a mystery how God was able to bring it back. God, by a process which surpasses human comprehension, has brought back your house, the very same one which was burned down.”
It is valid sometimes to appeal to divine mystery, but not in cases such as these. God cannot perform contradictory actions. Theologians have typically defined omnipotence to mean that God can perform any action which does not entail a contradiction. There are plenty of actions which God cannot perform because they would entail contradictions. God cannot lie because he is essentially holy. God cannot commit suicide because he is immortal. God cannot create a sphere with edges. God cannot create a triangle with two sides. God cannot create a stick with only one end. God cannot make 2+2=7 and so on. All of these actions would entail contradictions. Equivalently, bringing back a house which has ceased to exist is a contradiction not a mystery. It is not a mystery what a house is, nor what destruction is, nor what duplication means. These are things that we know, they are not mysteries. Because we know the definitions of these words we can analyze the meanings of sentences which contain these words and see whether or not they entail contradictions. If the death of a man is at all analogous to the illustrations I have given, and if the arguments I have given are valid, then physicalism stands in contradiction to the concept of resurrection and appealing to mystery does not do away with contradictions. If a human being ceases to exist entirely, there is nothing left over to reconstruct or resurrect.
Jaegwon Kim, Philosophy of Mind, 3rd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2011).
Jaegwon Kim, Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind–Body Problem and Mental Causation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996).
Nicholas Everitt, “Substance Dualism and Disembodied Existence,” Faith and Philosophy 17, no. 3 (2000): 333–47, here 336.
Peter van Inwagen, “The Possibility of Resurrection,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 9, no. 2 (1978): 118.
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