16 Comments
May 6, 2023Liked by Chris Reese

Great article - well-written and well-argued. Thank you. However, is the UNITY criterion really necessary for a biblically sound metaphysic of persons? I’ve never thought so. What would be the argument for this?

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Hi Alin, it’s great to see you here! Quick question: does TLD mean, that the soul is either male or female, so that a certain soul would „form“ a male body?

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Dear Alin, Thomism states that the soul is a subsistence of the the body. It sounds to me that TLD states that the body is a substinence of the soul; thus, that TLD is sort of the inversion of Thomism. Did I get this right?

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Apr 15, 2023·edited Apr 15, 2023

Dear Alin, thank you for the post. Can you elaborate, why you believe that a commitment to the statement "(Embodied) human beings appear to be unified, holistic beings, not like compound entities where the soul inhabits and steers the body like a captain steers a ship." is required?

To clarify on what I do NOT imply, might need a bit of elaboration...

I do not deny, that a sense of holism of a human is in the Bible. I am not aware that the Bible is making very direct claims regarding this, but it seems to at least hint at that, e.g., 1 Corinthians 6:16. However, holism does not mean that there is only one thing, in my humble understanding. My understanding is that holism means:

(A) The entity we are talking about is a whole/composite, meaning that is consists out of multiple (!) parts/simples that make up the whole in such a way that the whole is really existent. In other words, the whole is more than the set (or "arrangement") of its parts. If the entity we are talking about would not consist out of parts, we would not need to talk about (B) or - in fact - could not talk about (B) in any meaningful way.

(B) The parts of the composite we are talking are interconnected in such a tight way, that it is impossible to understand one without understanding the others. Possibly this is the same idea that J. P. Moreland calls "inseparable parts", but you are more expert on this than I am :-). In other (my) words, the connection(s) between the parts is as important to the nature of a part as the "internal being/nature" of the part itself.

In conclusion, I do not say, that multiple _substances_ are required for holism, but holism seems to require that the thing we are talking about is a whole, consisting of parts.

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Great article. I did not have the terms to express my beliefs, but now I would say I currently am a Thomist. Very excited to explore Moreland's defense of Thomist Dualism since I see the flaws of Thomism (TD) and the possible solutions in TD.

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Thanks, Joseph! Glad to hear you liked the article. I also think that TLD combines the best of both substance dualism and Thomism, because it takes the strengths of the one to mend the weaknesses of the other and vice versa.

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Oh my, I am SO excited to read this post. This is a question that I find to be so interesting, important, and tormenting at times. I can't wait to read this.

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Would be great to hear what you think after reading it! :-)

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I read 'God only hath immortality'. Do you have scriptures for

the 'immortality soul'. Then the wicked would live on.

But we read they are put in the lake of fire'.

We are Sola scriptura.

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Maybe it is worth pointing out that there is a great difference between God's immortality and the soul's (putative) immortality. The former is unconditional, and intrinsic to His nature, while the latter is conditional (upon God's holding the soul in existence, as with all created things) and extrinsic (conferred upon it by God). I don't think any Christian in his right mind would want to ascribe to the soul the same immortality that God has.

But in some important eschatological, soteriological and pastoral sense the soul's (or, for that matter, the human being's) immortality is crucial to the Christian faith. "They will rule with him forever and ever" (Rev. 22.5). Imagine that the saints ruled only for a certain time span, and then be annihilated. To me, that would be a total faith-crusher...

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Apr 17, 2023·edited Apr 17, 2023

Good reply! Your first paragraph said gracefully and short what I wrote rigorously, but a bit dry - even for my own taste :-D. Doing a lot of math-y metaphysics recently shows ;-).

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Apr 15, 2023·edited Apr 15, 2023

"Then the wicked would live on." how can you be "in a lake of fire" if you are not alive in any sense? Here, by "alive" I mean "existing with consciousness". If one is "in the lake of fire", existence is necessarily. Something that does not exist cannot be anywhere. If "being in the lake of fire" is without consciousness, that existence would be like stone would "be in a lake of fire", which would be without any consequence in any way. Thus, being alive, in the sense I defined it, is a prerequisite to "being in a lake of fire". At this point, I do not claim that the Bible claims, humans have immortal souls in general, I am trying to show the passage you quoted is - if anything - evidence that the Bible affirms immortality of the soul, rather than evidence that the Bible denies immortality of the soul.

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Spot on reply!

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First, thank you for your response, taking your important time. Knowing what the bible says and does not say may help, IF you find you believe the bible....or not.

So, we may part company, and let me express that I respect you regardless, because

our views, and beliefs are SHAPED, ...or not, over our life.

For example, I feel most privileged to NOT have been taught ANYTHING spiritual, or

biblical, so no early 'indoctrination'. I was miraculously called, and my mate

followed many years later.

The bible says ' Only God has immortality'. There IS NO immortal soul.

When the 'rapture' occurs, which not all believe, scripture says that 'mortality puts

on immortality' but when you look this word UP, in the original Greek language, the word

'immortal' doesn't mean that. It means 'a long age'.

If you consider it, and we must, everyone MUST have FREEDOM, AT ...ALL points of time,

freedom to 'opt out'. People must always CHOOSE freely to be part of

the Lord.

Scripture says that those that do what the bible shows, become 'part of the

Lord's body'. This is a SPIRITUAL body, of course. And not easy to do,

and a person has to be 'called', or 'drawn', or 'inclined' to go through what

is necessary. It is all about getting rid of sin, which is huge, layered,

definitely imbedded in us.

Scripture says that 'God is no respecter of persons', so it doesn't matter who we are,

it's about our willingness to 'kill sin', to get rid of sin.

The Lake of Fire, at the very, very end of this dispensation, before God creates

the 'new heaven and new earth' (all new), is to totally burn up sin, so then

the person is no more. Depending on the severity or depth of the sin, it will

take short or long to destroy sin. If someone is BONDED to sin, and it can't

be removed, then it all is destroyed.

For example, the devil, the false prophet, the beast, will all take a long time

to burn out the sin. From my studies, this seems to have NOTHING to do with

punishment at all. I think it is humans that are 'into punishment', although

I may be missing some scriptures, and need to alter this view.

God only wants to rid the Saved from all sin.

Scripture says more than this, and is very worthy of study to get a

better picture of things.

A lot of good stuff is found biblically on Google, for example.

If you're interested.

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I was neither trying to say what I believe, nor what any christian organization / church etc. claims, not even what the Bible in total teaches, I was only trying to say for which of the views "the human soul is immortal" vs. "the human soul is not immortal" the statement with the lake of fire provides evidence about the total opinion of the Bible. Please note, that this is even less aspiration, then if I had said, I want to say what this part of the Bible definitively says about the soul's immortality. The "if anything" in my previous post was important: I am claiming very little!

While I am certainly (in one way or another) I have been influenced by various people (Christian and non-Christian alike, as every human is influenced by others), and while one might call this indoctrination (which most of the time is a polemic word, and not a defined matter-of-fact word), I do not see how this would be relevant to my argument. I tried to lay out my argument in a sober tone and rigorously and any vagueness was made explicit by me being careful with my claim in the first place (see my last paragraph). Also, I tried to stick to the words as close as possible. Even if I was strongly "indoctrinated", my argument should stand on its own.

Ok, let's move away from my original point about the "lake of fire", which you did not get respond to and let's get into "Only God has immortality". Is this claiming that God is immortal? Not directly. For example, a very simple definition of immortality would be "not having the capacity to die". (Your definition is different, I will get to that later.) Can someone have something without having this as an property of one's being. Sure, I can have a house, but the house itself is no property of my being (body or my sould or spirit etc.). Also, I can give that house to somebody else. Could someone "have immortality" without being immortal? Sure, that someone might carry immortality around (in what way, I have not idea) and might give this to others. So, saying "God has immortality" is true even if it were true that "God can die and disappear, but he can remove from others the capacity to die". In fact, if anything this would make God more powerful as in "having more capacity" and "being able to do things".

All that being said, do I think that this part of the Bible suggests immortality is NOT a property of God's being? No. Even though this part allows for this reading, I don't think it _means_ this reading. In fact, I believe the passage hints strongly that God is immortal (not only have immortality).

Now adding the "only". Based on THIS part: Does this forces us to believe that only God IS immortal and that he can NOT take the capacity for dying from someone (making them immortal)? No. This limitation of God's power is not entailed in THIS part of the Bible either. And yes, immortality is - in a way - a limitation of "being able to do something".

Long story short, THIS passage entails (as in "forces us to believe") less than you might think.

Now, let's not define immortality as I have, but instead let us define it as "a long age" and let us assume that this is the meaning not only in that other passage, but also here (as if words could not have two different meaning in different places). Well, then the word is LESS extreme and the passage entails even less.

Ok, then you quote a couple of more passages, I cannot - due to time - go through all of them this rigorously. My general point is, one needs to be careful what to read into a text and believe that this text forces one to believe that.

All that being said, I am not sure what you are getting at. I think, that you mean to say that the "fire of the lake" removes all sin, it burns away all sin and this is not a form of punishment. Ok, granted, maybe this is the case, I am totally fine with that reading for now. But then you say that the fire burns away the entire person... what is the point of that? So, now there is nothing left of the person. But if there is not person, no entity anymore, then there is nothing anymore to be with God. If there is nothing, there is no "the saved" anymore to be with God. Your text is contradicting in itself. Maybe you mean something else - if so, please clarify :-). But maybe you can do me a favor and not use polemic words like "indoctrination" or polemic phrases like "sola scriptura".

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Sola scriptura MUST be retained for the integrity of scripture.

That means only what's said in scripture, no more, no less.

Otherwise people are without grounding.

In the phrase, 'Only God has immortality, then certainly God does have immortality, and ONLY.

Which makes sense, to me. I can rest assured that Mao's

soul won't be continuing, Biden's for today, I'm sure others,

for brevity, not listing.

In fact, there are very logical lists of what sort of person

will be, must be destroyed.

Many such, however, may come to see their error and quit.

If sin cannot be extricate from the person, and since

they must want this, then they are destroyed, else that 'body of sin continues.

This is prior to the 'new heavens (pl), and new earth, which is

not a cgi globe.

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