Author’s Introduction
- Nancey Murphy argues that Christians have nothing to fear from physicalism1. We can reject dualism without contradicting biblical accounts of our nature, abandoning belief in our distinctiveness, denying that we are free and responsible, or giving up the hope for an afterlife2. The benefits are less mystery, more scientific respectability, a spirituality less absorbed with inwardness and otherworldliness, and a greater concern for community.
- As a Christian physicalist3 I hope that she is right; however, I am not as confident as she that soul theories are in such bad shape or that her favored physicalist4 account of embodiment, identity across time, and resurrection is free of major problems.
Notes5
- Hershenov starts by summarising Murphy’s sanguine assessment of physicalism6 from a Christian perspective.
- We are “neither identical to a soul nor have one as a part. ”
- “We are physical bodies, though very complex organic ones. ”
- “Soul” refers to “the whole living person”.
- We are “spirited bodies” – where “spirited” is “aspective rather than partive” … “ ‘Spirit’ stands for the whole person in relation to God, not a part of his nature. ”
- Murphy’s intentions are to keep Christian accounts of human nature “in keeping with current intellectual developments in the sciences”. Fine – but a bit of a hostage to fortune. Better, her claim that the NT doesn’t intend to teach us anything about human metaphysical compositions, so we’re free to follow the truth where it leads.
- Hershenov issues warnings about a couple of Murphy’s specific objections to dualism7:-
- Conservation of energy: Hershenov asks whether the mind might influence merely the distribution of energy. Has this been discussed anywhere? It sounds fishy to me – while we might get away without violating the first law of thermodynamics, moving energy about effortlessly violates the second law.
- God’s intervention at the quantum level: this, apparently, “doesn’t violate statistical laws of physics”. How so? Hershenov’s objection is that the dualist can also use a similar wheeze, but he doesn’t spell out how.
- How would disembodied8 souls communicate? If this is an objection to dualism, it’s an objection to God and angels communicating, so a Christian9 can’t make use of this objection
- Hershenov notes the intended audience – upper undergraduate and graduate students in theology, plus Christian teachers and Church professionals – will find her section on physicalism10 and free will “especially useful”.
- It seems that Murphy has an affinity with Hobbesian spiders as for at free will is concerned.
- “… the freedom that we want is just the freedom to act for reasons”
- “Any more freedom of the libertarian11 bent she thinks is untenable and perhaps even incoherent. ”
- So far so good – “controversial but plausible”, but Hershenov thinks the wheels fall off in the last section of the last chapter ("Murphy (Nancey) - What are the philosophical challenges to physicalism? Human distinctiveness, divine action, and personal identity") where personal identity and resurrection are discussed.
- She’s stopped reading the literature with Wiggins in the early 1970s.
- She doesn’t give a clear account of identity, dithering between psychological (memory) and physical (brain) accounts and wanting to add “same moral character” to the mix.
- It seems that Murphy wants to have her cake and eat it. She wants us to be living animals, but won’t accept the consequences of this and tries to add in a contradictory psychological aspect.
- Hershenov points out that the psychological element would:-
- Mean we were never mindless embryos12 or infants.
- Raise problems about what happens to this mindless being13 when our psychology develops.
- We couldn’t survive severe amnesia, even if re-trained (say, after a stroke).
- Certain modal14 claims normally considered true would be false: eg. you couldn’t have been brought up a Muslim.
- So, we’ve ended up in something of a muddle. We started off with us being human animals15, but Murphy’s account ends up with psychological persistence conditions16 that are inconsistent with this.
- Hershenov thinks that Murphy’s account of resurrection17 – where we acquire new bodies – is more akin to reincarnation18, and (it seems) is contrary to the Apostles’ Creed in that the same body isn’t restored. There’s a long quotation from Murphy is which she states:-
- That spatio-temporal continuity – while necessary for the persistence of material objects – is only a contingent part of our concept of a person, since are psychological characteristics are only contingently supported by a material object.
- So (she says) there’s no reason why a numerically distinct but qualitatively similar body shouldn’t preserve these same characteristics.
- This “recognition” allows us to finesse the “torturous attempts as in the early Church to reconcile resurrection with material continuity. ”
- Hershenov wants to know what sort of physical being (which Murphy starts off claiming we are) can switch bodies. In particular – he claims – “No organism, no living being that is essentially alive19, can acquire a new body. ”
- Hershenov now tries to repair20 Murphy’s analysis of human personhood. He can think of two21 options:-
- Constitution: this is Lynne Rudder Baker’s Constitution View22. Hershenov’s rejection23 of the CV24 is necessarily too brief25 in this small space. It comes down to:-
- A person is “derivatively and contingently an animal for it is now constituted by an organic body thought it might not be so in the future”, but this isn’t enough “since persons are supposed to be a kind of material object and thus should be subsumed under the latter’s nature”.
- As far as it goes, it’s OK for our “possibly not being alive in the next world with a numerically distinct, transformed body where the laws of nature will not hold and thus ‘we cannot answer in advance questions about digestion, metabolizing and so forth.’”
- Contra Baker’s protestations (elsewhere), Hershenov thinks that the CV26 involves a commitment to “a new physicalist27 dualism” with two physically indistinguishable material bodies with different properties in the same place at the same time.
- In particular, it falls prey (he says) to the Thinking Animal Argument28.
- Identity: we persons are not constituted by – but are identical to – a body that is only contingently alive.
- Hershenov thinks there are two ways of unpacking this idea:-
- Contingent29 Identity: Now I’m identical to one organic body; in the “next life30” I’m to be identical to a numerically distinct body.
- Phase Sortals31: Numerically the same body is at one time alive and at another not so. Hence, “being organic” is like “being an adolescent” – not an essential property of bodies.
- So, how do these possibilities fit in with Murphy’s claims?
- Satisfies “a replica of my body could be me”; and “a transformed version of my body could be me”.
- Satisfies only the first of the above claims.
- And what are the problems?
- Hershenov has an interesting paragraph detailing the additional problems with the “contingent identity”37 interpretation.
- There’s an “unwarranted leap” from organisms’ admitted ability to survive the replacement of matter to the wholesale replacement of matter by “different stuff” in the resurrected replica.
- It is usually taken as a metaphysical necessity that “property instantiations (modes or tropes) can’t38 switch substances”.
- Also, “too large or too quick a replacement39 results in a duplicate40 rather than the same substance composed of different matter”.
- “Thus new matter must be gradually assimilated to preserve continuity of substance and person preserving property instantiations41.”
- Hence, the resurrected replica42 is a duplicate43 rather than the pre-mortem body transformed.
- Hershenov doesn’t think Murphy should adopt either of the above construals of the body/person relationship – either constitution or identity – as neither is required either by physicalism44 or the need for resurrection.
- Instead, she should drop her claim for our psychological traits being necessary for our persistence and just:-
- “trust God to resurrect us in a manner that restores our mind to the manner it was last45 in when in working order. ”
- “if we had died in utero, which seems to have been a possibility46, trust that God would resurrect us and allow us to develop into conscious, moral and loving human beings and introduce us to our family. ”
- Murphy – says Hershenov – should also drop the idea that we are only contingently alive, as follows:-
- “We don’t have to transform our notion of being an animal in order to make sense of how we could possess a body47 that will serve us without end in the afterlife48.
- All that is needed is for God to ‘mask’ those dispositions of our organic makeup that would otherwise lead to our eventual decay.
- Homeostatic and metabolic functions could be perfectly maintained by the ‘divine doctor49.’
- Surely this can happen for resurrection is a miracle and eternal life may indeed mean the many of our laws of our world don’t hold50.
”
In summary, Murphy should take us to be “spirited animals, essentially alive”, for
- “This seems … to be what it is to take embodiment seriously and avoids problems of:-
- colocation and too many thinkers51,
- contingent identity52,
- human animals53 with bizarre disjunctive persistence conditions54, and
- property modes switching bodies.
- Such an approach takes our biological nature seriously but
- Doesn’t deny that we are distinct55 from the rest of the animal kingdom in being free, rational and moral creatures that can know God. ”
Comment:
For the full text, follow this link (Local website only): PDF File56.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 5: These aren’t intended to be in any way complete.
Footnote 7: Hershenov – despite being a materialist – suggest that dualism may be in better shape than Murphy makes out.
Footnote 9:
- Hershenov says “presents no new difficulties”, which is fair enough.
- The question is, should a Christian be worried?
- For all we know, angels are material – they are certainly represented as being able to take human form.
- As, of course, is God.
Footnote 11: I think this goes along the lines of not just wanting to do what we will, but will what we will.
Footnote 13: This is a general problem – much beloved of extreme pro-lifers like Hershenov – with any account of our identity that doesn’t insist we come into existence at conception.
Footnote 14:
- I’ve not heard this point before against certain versions of the PV.
- But is this objection correct?
- Hershenov claims that the TE would violate the transitivity of identity.
- He also claims (correctly) that the child would develop psychologically in very different ways, and that the adults in the two possible worlds would not be psychologically connected.
- But this may just be confusing psychological continuity with psychological connectedness?
- It’s a bit like Reid’s “Old Soldier” argument against Locke, which also raises issues about the logic of identity.
- This is answered by friends of the PV by invoking “quasi-” psychological attributes, but it’s not clear to me what the response is in this case.
Footnote 19:
- It is interesting that Hershenov treats "life" as a strictly biological activity of organisms, essentially involving metabolism and the like.
- While I quite like this way of treating “life”, it does need to be spelled out clearly.
- It is natural to assume that anything that is not “alive” is “dead”, but this isn’t what Murphy has in mind. She presumably imagines that in the next world the post-mortem individual, while not needing to metabolise, can still function, be conscious, and have all the benefits of “life” while not being alive, strictly speaking.
- We need a new term for “non-biological ‘life’”.
- It would apply to God, and the angels – and (maybe) to whatever the transhumanists can dream up.
Footnote 20: He says “construe … the relationship between persons and their animal bodies that might make sense of Murphy’s claims”.
Footnote 21: Which these two are isn’t very well signposted. The first is clear, but the second not.
Footnote 25: He deals with it at length in "Hershenov (David) - Problems with a Constitution Account of Persons".
Footnote 29:
- See contingent identity.
- CI usually refers to possible but non-actual situations, but in this case the situation is supposed to be actual.
- It is the case though that under this supposition I’m not necessarily identical to this organic body, so – as I am supposed to be currently identical to it – I must be only contingently identical to it.
Footnote 30: In what sense of “life” is the “next life” life?
Footnote 35: This was the claim – probably false – against the first "CV" interpretation.
Footnote 38:
- I agree, but this is very “quick”, in that it might not be readily apparent what he means by “property instantiations (modes or tropes) can’t switch substances”.
- A “mode” is an enlightenment term for a property of a substance.
- A “trope” (at least in metaphysics) is an individuated property.
- So, the thought is that the person – being a property of a substance (the human animal) – cannot hop from one substance (the human body) to another (the resurrection body), any more than a particular smile or dent could: the numerically-distinct object might be smiling or dented, but it wouldn’t be the very same smile or dent.
- But – true though this is – the objection depends on this interpretation of just what a person is.
- A holder of the CV wouldn’t accept this analysis.
Footnote 39:
- This metabolic assimilation requirement is very reasonable, but may be hard to make precise.
- It also seems to apply to non-metabolising objects – artifacts for instance.
- But, just what speed of replacement is “too quick” or chunking of matter “too large”?
- Presumably both are relative to the “pace of life” and size of the organism / object?
- Also, is there any principled reason for all this, apart from an intuition?
Footnote 41:
- The last four words of this sentence – “person preserving property instantiations” – require some exegesis.
- But I’m not sure what this should be!
Footnote 42: The fact that the term “replica” is used must mean that Murphy denies any identity-claims for the bodies, and must be adopting a constitution view (given that she’s a physicalist).
Footnote 45:
- All accounts of resurrection are a bit obscure about just what stage of our being is the most appropriate to “restore” us to – if this is the right term, or suggestion.
- But at least on this proposal, if the mind just comes along with the body, that’s one problem finessed.
Footnote 46: Several points here:-
- Firstly, this again reflects Hershenov’s ultra-Catholic pro-life stance. Every scrap of human life has eternal value which must be recognised as having a right to achieve fulfilment.
- It is at least consistent, modally speaking, with the OT:-
- Job 10:19: “If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!”
- Ecclesiastes 6:3: “A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.”
- So, he has Biblical support for the anti-PV approach – though whether the writers really thought that they would be numerically identical to a still birth is uncertain. See Gill: “For though it cannot be said absolutely of such an one, an abortive or untimely birth, that it is a nonentity, or never existed; yet comparatively …”
- However I doubt there’s any support for Hershenov’s rosy account of post-mortem development from a presumed blank slate.
- Also – as Hershenov’s a keen advocate of purgatory (eg. "Hershenov (David) & Koch-Hershenov (Rose J.) - Personal identity and Purgatory") – ought he not to think of limbo as the home for the unbaptised innocent? It seems though that there’s no longer clear Catholic teaching on this matter – and that “Limbo of Infants” isn’t an official doctrine (Wikipedia: Limbo).
Footnote 47: So, Hershenov thinks that it’s this very body.
Footnote 49: This would seem to be rather “hands on”. It’s all pure speculation, of course, but if you go along with this essentially materialist and naturalist approach, you’d be better off positing a change in the laws of nature, rather than eternal tinkering (unless you think that’s what’s already happening).
Footnote 50: Indeed. How could it be otherwise, unless we wanted an eternal mess rather than only a temporary one
Footnote 55:
- Is this a saltation, or just a matter of degree?
- What would be Hershenov’s guide on this matter?
- In particular, is there any animalist motivation for a difference of kind rather than just of degree?
- It is, though, admittedly difficult to know how non-linguistic animals could “know God” – even if they might (to a degree) be “free, rational and moral” but maybe God has a way.
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