In dicephalus conjoined twinning, it appears that two heads share a body; in cephalopagus, it appears that two bodies share a head. How many human animals are present in these cases? One answer is that there are two in both cases—conjoined twins are precisely that, conjoined twins. Another is that the number of humans corresponds to the number of bodies—so there is one in dicephalus and two in cephalopagus. I show that both of these answers are incorrect. Prominent accounts of (...) biological individuation, which treat the organism as an integrated whole, reveal that in these and other cases of conjoined twinning the ‘twins’ share a single human animal. This has a number of consequences for the debate about what we are. First, if animalism is true, individuals of our kind can be—and are—profoundly psychologically divided. Second, cephalopagus twinning does not divide animalism from its rivals, as has been claimed. Finally, animalists can reply to a vicious species of the ‘too many thinkers’ problem to which they are allegedly uniquely vulnerable. (shrink)

According to conventionalist accounts of personal identity, persons are constituted in part by practices and attitudes of certain sorts of care. In this paper, we concentrate on the most well-developed and defended version of conventionalism currently on offer (namely, that proposed by David Braddon-Mitchell, Caroline West, and Kristie Miller) and discuss how the conventionalist appears forced either (1) to accept arbitrariness concerning from which perspective to judge one's survival or (2) to maintain egalitarianism at the cost of making “transfiguring” decisions (...) such as Pascal's Wager rationally intractable. We consider three ways the egalitarian conventionalist could make these choices tractable and show that each one comes at significant cost to the view. We end the paper by considering whether accepting arbitrariness would be a better move for the conventionalist and conclude that, even here, she runs the risk of transfiguring choices being rationally intractable. (shrink)

Among your closest associates is a certain human animal – a living, breathing, organism. You see it when you look in the mirror. When it is sick, you don't feel too well. Where it goes, you go. And, one thinks, where you go, it must follow. Indeed, you can make it move through sheer force of will. You bear, in short, an important and intimate relation to this, your animal. So too rest of us with our animals. Animalism says that (...) this relation is nothing short of identity. According to animalists, we do not only coincide with or constitute or inhabit or otherwise hang out with these close associates, our animals: we are them. In this article, I offer an opinionated take on what animalism might be and situate it against contemporary rivals. Then, I outline a simple case for animalism. Finally, I sketch non-standard routes for animalists to take in light of standard challenges. My goal in all of this is to open up some new avenues of animalist thinking. (shrink)

The main purpose of this dissertation is to examine critically and discuss the role of imagination in science and religion, with particular emphasis on its possible epistemic, creative, and meaning-making functions. In order to answer my research questions, I apply theories and concepts from contemporary philosophy of mind on scientific and religious practices. This framework allows me to explore the mental state of imagination, not as an isolated phenomenon but, rather, as one of many mental states that co-exist and interplay (...) in our cogntive architecture. Based on the philosophical discourse of philosophy of mind, four types of imagination are indentified and conceptualized: sensory, propositional, experiential, and creative imagination. These categories are then employed on five phenomena that can be found in scientific and religious environments: metaphors, models, thought experiments, aspect perception, and - in the religious case - rituals. In relation to the concept of religious "seeing" I consider how imaginings may influence visionary experiences and visualization, and compare these phenomena with cases of scientific visualization and eureka experiences. In regard to scientific and religious models, a distinction is made between, on the one hand, two notions of truth and, on the other hand, truth-independent meaning-making. In light of these categories, I differentiate between, and critically discuss, the use of imagination in doxastic, non-doxastic and fictionalist accounts. In light of this investigation, I formulate and defend the position of interactivism, which acknowledges a constant interplay between different attitudes and mental states. In my examination of rituals and scientific and religious thought experiments, special attention is given to the mental capacity to recreate the experiences that are entailed in an imagined scenario. At the end of the investigation, I consider the possible impact that my study might have on how we view science and religion as well as the dialogue bewteen these two fields. (shrink)

In this paper, I state the what I call the “problem of life after death,” survey some responses to it, and highlight a way in which the field might progress. Put simply, the problem of life after death is the problem of reconciling the fact that when we die, we will be totally destroyed with the belief that we will exist again at some time after our deaths. Contemporary solutions to the problem have focussed on the “logical” version of this (...) problem. I highlight that the problem would be better thought of as an evidential problem. (shrink)

This article aims to provide a theory of atonement, termed the "Agápēic Theory," which is formulated within a philosophical framework that has the aim of humans flourishing to the maximum level through partaking in an everlasting relationship of love with God. The Agápēic Theory will be formulated by using a certain conception of love, introduced by Alexander Pruss, into the field of applied ethics, and also various elements from other existing theories of the Atonement found within the fields of analytic (...) theology, in the work of Richard Swinburne, Eleonore Stump and Robin Collins, and systematic/biblical theology, in the work of Karl Barth and N.T Wright, which will both help to ground the Agápēic Theory on firm philosophical and theological grounds and ultimately provide a robust theory of the Atonement. (shrink)

I argue that ensouled animalism—the view that we are identical to animals that have immaterial souls as parts—has a pair of advantages over its two nearest rivals, materialistic animalism and pure dualism. Contra pure dualism, ensouled animalism can explain how physical predications can be literally true of us. Contra materialistic animalism, ensouled animalism can explain how animals can survive death. Furthermore, ensouled animalism has these advantages without creating any problems beyond those already faced by animalism and by belief in souls. (...) However, some animalists, including Eric Olson, think that animals cannot have immaterial parts. I present a sufficient condition for animal parthood that implies animals can have immaterial parts. Ensouled animalism is not only possible, but also doubly attractive. (shrink)

A powerful argument against the resurrection of the body is based on the premise that all resurrection theories violate natural laws. We counter this argument by developing a fully naturalistic resurrection theory. We refer to it as the revision theory of resurrection (the RTR). Since Hick’s replica theory is already highly naturalistic, we use Hick’s theory as the basis for the RTR. According to Hick, resurrection is the recreation of an earthly body in another universe. The recreation is a resurrection (...) counterpart. We show that the New Testament supports the idea of resurrection counterparts. The RTR asserts that you are a node in a branching tree of increasingly perfect resurrection counterparts. These ever better counterparts live in increasingly perfect resurrection universes. We give both theological arguments and an empirical argument for the RTR. (shrink)

Peter van Inwagen’s short piece on the possibility of resurrection via simulacrum from 1978 has been regularly condemned for its overall implausibility. However, this paper argues that van Inwagen’s thesis has been unfairly criticized and remains a live and salutary option. It begins by summarizing the metaphysics of the simulacrum theory of the resurrection alongside the motivation for such a theory. Next, it challenges the four main criticisms against the van Inwagen styled simulacrum model. First, it argues that while van (...) Inwagen’s model may appear unnecessary or irrelevant for those that reject his metaphysics of human persons, an account like his is necessary for those that desire to maintain the traditional metaphysics of resurrection (e.g., the resurrection of the “self-same” body). Second, it argues that his model does not implicate God in mass deception or irreverence for the dead. Third, it rejects the idea that van Inwagen’s model is analogous to the implausibility of young earth creationism and its required claims like dinosaur bones being given the appearance of age. Fourth, it argues that his model is not metaphysically impossible for scenarios where someone is simultaneously killed and destroyed, such as in nuclear blasts. (shrink)

After rejecting substance dualism, some naturalists embrace patternism. It states that persons are bodies and that bodies are material machines running abstract person programs. Following Aristotle, these person programs are souls. Patternists adopt four-dimensionalist theories of persistence: Bodies are 3D stages of 4D lives. Patternism permits at least six types of life after death. It permits quantum immortality, teleportation, salvation through advanced technology, promotion out of a simulated reality, computational monadology, and the revision theory of resurrection.

Some theists have adopted materialism for human persons. They associate this metaphysics with their belief in resurrection and focus on problems arising from personal identity, temporal gaps or material constitution, but, in this paper, I argue that being a materialist for human persons leads to an epistemological problem regarding our knowledge of God’s life. The only way to avoid this problem is to choose a particular materialist metaphysics for human persons, that is, a constitution theory that emphasizes the irreducibility of (...) the first-person perspective. (shrink)

At a 2011 meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers, N. T. Wright offered four reasons for rejecting the existence of soul. This was surprising, as many Christian philosophers had previously taken Wright's defense of a disembodied intermediate state as a defense of a substance dualist view of the soul. In this paper, I offer responses to each of Wright's objections, demonstrating that Wright's arguments fail to undermine substance dualism. In so doing, I expose how popular arguments against dualism fail, (...) such as dualism is merely an unwarranted influence of Greek culture on Christianity, and substance dualism is merely a soul-of-the-gaps hypothesis. Moreover, I demonstrate that Wright himself has offered a powerful reason for adopting substance dualism in his previous works. In conclusion I offer a view that explains why the human soul needs a resurrected body. (shrink)

It is widely held that the classic reassembly model of resurrection faces intractable problems. What happens to someone if God assembles two individuals at the resurrection which are equally good candidates for being the original person? If two or more people, such as a cannibal and the cannibal’s victim, were composed of the same particles at their respective deaths, can they both be resurrected? If they can, who gets the shared particles? And would an attempt to reassemble a long-gone individual (...) result in a genuine resurrection, or merely an intrinsic duplicate of the original person? In this paper, I argue that the first of these problems has, in effect, been solved by defenders of a rival view; I propose a novel solution to the second problem; and I show that the third can be solved by upgrading the naïve reassembly model to a novel variety of reassembly model. (shrink)

Some Christian materialists have argued for the possibility of resurrection given that persons are constituted by bodies, and constitution is not identity. Baker's constitutionist view claims superiority over animalist alternatives but offers only circular accounts of both personal identity over time and personhood. Corcoran's alternative approaches these questions differently but makes use of Zimmerman's ‘Falling Elevator Model’ of resurrection, which is rendered incoherent by its reliance on contingent identity. A recent constitutionist revision of this model succeeds only in exchanging incoherence (...) for absurdity. Despite difficulties for such resurrection accounts, the idea of constitution as a sui generis relation remains attractive among philosophers and Christian materialists in particular. However, Wasserman's deflationary view combines with problems such as extensionality, indiscernibility and the explosion of reality to provide reason to worry that constitution might be just identity after all. If so, then the metaphysics of constitution cannot provide a convenient route between animalism and immaterialism when explaining the possibility of resurrection. (shrink)

Whether or not it is coherent to place hope in a future life beyond the grave has become a central question in the larger debate about whether a materialist view of human persons can accommodate Christian belief. Hud Hudson defends a four-dimensional account of resurrection in order to avoid persistent difficulties experienced by three-dimensionalist animalism. I present two difficulties unique to Hudson’s view. The first problem of counterpart hope is a manifestation of a general weakness of four-dimensional views to accommodate (...) adequately prudential concern about one’s future self. More significantly, the second problem of quasi hope demonstrates that even if a temporal parts view can accommodate the possibility of future resurrection it necessarily leaves human beings in the dark about their individual futures and thus incapable of hope. I conclude that whatever its merits in demonstrating the possibility of resurrection, four-dimensionalist materialism cannot accommodate veridical Christian hope. (shrink)

This piece raises a new challenge for Christian materialist accounts of human persons. Revisiting one of the perennial challenges for Christian materialism, explaining the metaphysical compatibility of resurrection and the life everlasting with materialist metaphysics, I argue that resuscitation phenomena reported in scripture undermine van Inwagen’s and Zimmerman’s attempts to reconcile resurrection and materialism. Although this challenge to Christian materialism is not insurmountable, it provides good reason to reject several of the most serious Christian materialist projects and offers a reason (...) for Christians to consider alternatives to materialism. (shrink)

Journal of Religious Ethics, Volume 49, Issue 2, Page 358-380, June 2021.

We present an original emergent individuals view of human persons, on which persons are substantial biological unities that exemplify metaphysically emergent mental states. We argue that this view allows for a coherent model of identity-preserving resurrection from the dead consistent with orthodox Christian doctrine, one that improves upon alternatives accounts recently proposed by a number of authors. Our model is a variant of the “falling elevator” model advanced by Dean Zimmerman that, unlike Zimmerman’s, does not require a closest continuer account (...) of personal identity. We end by raising some remaining theological concerns. (shrink)

The State may require an autopsy when foul play is suspected in the death of one of its citizens.[1] This is so regardless of any objections to such invasive procedures expressed by the deceased before their deaths or afterward by their families. There is not even a religious exemption. The most obvious explanation for why consent is not needed is that apprehending a murderer with information obtained from the autopsy can save lives. However, taking organs without consent from the deceased (...) for transplantation into those suffering vital organ failures can also save lives. But doing so is considered beyond the pale. The question then becomes why are mandatory autopsies permitted but organ conscription prohibited? Our aim is to explore whether such divergent attitudes can be justified. (shrink)

Closest-continuer or best-candidate accounts of persistence seem deeply unsatisfactory, but it’s hard to say why. The standard criticism is that such accounts violate the ‘only a and b’ rule, but this criticism merely highlights a feature of the accounts without explaining why the feature is unacceptable. Another concern is that such accounts violate some principle about the supervenience of persistence facts upon local or intrinsic facts. But, again, we do not seem to have an independent justification for this supervenience claim. (...) Instead, I argue that closest continuer accounts are committed to unexplained correlations between distinct existences, and that this is their fundamental flaw. We can have independent justification for rejecting such correlations, but what the justification is depends upon much broader issues in ontology. There is no one-size-fits all objection to closest-continuer accounts of persistence. (shrink)

In the paper I argue that the "falling elevator" model once proposed by Dean Zimmerman to improve some drawbacks of Peter van Inwagen's account of how a belief in Christian resurrection could be made compatible with a materialist understanding of human persons is not satisfactory. Christian resurrection requires not only a survival, but also true death of a person, while the falling elevator can merely provide us with an account of how a material person is able miraculously to escape its (...) own death. (shrink)

I argue for the following four theses: (1) The Dread Thesis: human beings should fear having false religious beliefs concerning some religious doctrines; (2) The Radical Uncertainty Thesis: we, namely most human beings in our culture at our time, are in a situation where we have to commit ourselves on the truth or falsity of some propositions of ultimate importance; (3) The Radical Choice Thesis: considerations of expected loss or gain do not always provide guidance as to how to commit (...) ourselves on matters of religious doctrine that are both radically uncertain and of ultimate importance; (4) The Scandal Thesis: radical choice on matters of ultimate importance is neither good nor inevitable, but due to the collective failure of philosophers of religion. Then I consider some inadequate responses: playing the faith card; contra-Pascalian decision theory; spiritual chauvinism; that faith presupposes uncertainty; the older pachyderm; irony, subjectivity, relativism and non-cognitivism; tainted truth; and muddling through. Finally I submit that the way forward is quite simply to become better philosophers. (shrink)

One reading of the Doctrine of Original Sin has it that we are guilty of a sin committed by Adam, thousands of years ago. Fission theorists account for this by saying that Adam fissioned after he sinned and that each of us is one of his ‘fission successors’. This paper recaps the current discussion in the literature about this theory, arguing that the proposed version does not work for reasons already raised by Rea and Hudson. I then introduce a new (...) version of fission theory that avoids the Rea-Hudson objection. (shrink)

In the first part of the paper, I argue that Christians should incorporate the theory of reincarnation into their belief system. The problem of the apparent disproportion between finite human sin and infinite punishment in Hell becomes far more tractable against the background of reincarnation. In the second part of the paper, I address and answer three objections that may be raised against a Christian theory of reincarnation. The first objection is based on the role of memory in identity, the (...) second points to the essential unity of body and soul, and the third revolves around the suggestion that living multiple lives may more easily lead to damnation than to salvation. (shrink)

Many of the doctrines central to Christianity have important philosophical implications or presuppositions. In this article, we begin with a brief general discussion of the relationship between philosophy and Christian dogma, and then we turn our attention to three of the most philosophically challenging Christian doctrines: the trinity, the incarnation, and the atonement. We take these three as our focus because, unlike (for example) doctrines about providence or the attributes of God, these are distinctive to Christian theology and, unlike (for (...) example) the doctrine of original sin or the Real Presence of Christ in the eucharist, these have been the subject of a great deal of discussion over the past couple of decades. (shrink)

This thesis philosophically examines, critically discusses, and proposes how a plausible philosophical framework of consciousness and free will should be formulated. This framework takes into account contemporary scientific research on human consciousness and free will and its possible challenges; also it is examined how this framework should be related to theistic beliefs – especially those connected to human and divine consciousness and free will. First, an overview of important research within the natural sciences about the conscious mind is presented together (...) with its challenges to a theistic worldview. Next, questions related to reductive physicalism and dualism as a thesis and an antithesis are discussed. This dialectical approach leads to two lines for possible alternatives: emergence theories and process panpsychism. The subsequent analysis suggests that a form of process panpsychism in combination with a weaker form of emergence is most plausible. After a discussion of some central ideas about determinism and indeterminism, together with a brief overview of standard arguments within the philosophical free will debate, the proposed emergent process panpsychism is related to these standard arguments in the free will debate and scientific research about decision-making. As a result it will be suggested how free will should be understood in relation to the emergent process panpsychism. The consequences of these results are then discussed in relation to a theistic worldview. Here panentheism will be suggested as the most reasonable conception of God. Also, the consequences for divine consciousness, divine action and interaction, the human soul, life before birth and after death, and more briefly a personal relationship with God, theological determinism, omniscience, and omnipotence will be discussed specifically in relation to panentheism in an emergent process panpsychist setting. (shrink)

This paper—written for nonspecialist readers—asks whether life after death is in any sense possible given the apparent fact that after we die our remains decay to the point where only randomly scattered atoms remain. The paper argues that this is possible only if our remains are not in fact dispersed in this way, and discusses how that might be the case. -/- 1. Life After Death -- 2. Total Destruction -- 3. The Soul -- 4. Body-Snatching -- 5. Radical Resurrection (...) -- 6. Irreversibility -- 7. Atomic Reassembly -- 8. The Transporter -- 9. Replicas and Originals -- 10. Survival and Causal Connections. (shrink)

The paper concerns the metaphysical possibility of life after death. It argues that the existence of a psychological duplicate is insufficient for resurrection, even if psychological continuity suffices for personal identity. That is because our persistence requires immanent causation. There are at most three ways of having life after death: if we are immaterial souls; if we are snatched bodily from our deathbeds; or if there is immanent causation ‘at a distance’ as Zimmerman proposes--but this requires an ontology of temporal (...) parts. (shrink)

We present a criterion for the use of thought experiments as a guide to possibilia that bear on important arguments in philosophy of religion. We propose that the more successful thought experiments are closer to the world in terms of phenomenological realism and the values they are intended to track. This proposal is filled out by comparing thought experiments of life after death by Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman with an idealist thought experiment. In terms of realism and values (...) we contrast an exemplary thought experiment by Iris Murdoch with one we find problematic by William Irwin. (shrink)

In this thesis I set forth what I understand to be the criteria of a Christian anthropology. From this, I then evaluate the major anthropological systems that Christians tend to employ to develop their accounts of human persons, with special attention given to Christian materialism, substance dualism, and Thomistic hylomorphism. I contend that neither Christian materialism nor substance dualism adequately satisfy the criteria of a Christian anthropology, and that some of the best examples of these perspectives have unique philosophical problems (...) of their own. I then consider Thomas Aquinas’s hylomorphic account of human persons and argue that, while it does not perfectly satisfy the criteria of a Christian anthropology, it does fair better than both Christian materialism and substance dualism, and that there are ways to modify his account to enable it to better satisfy the Christian criteria. (shrink)

Orthodox Christianity affirms a bodily resurrection of the dead. That is, Christians believe that at some point in the eschatological future, possibly after a period of (conscious or unconscious) disembodied existence, we will once again live and animate our own bodies. However, our bodies will also undergo radical qualitative transformation. This creates a serious problem: how can a body persist across both temporal discontinuity and qualitative transformation? After discussing this problem as it appears in contemporary philosophical literature on the resurrection, (...) I will argue that George Berkeley's immaterialist metaphysics is more successful than either physicalism or dualism in escaping objections to resurrection based on the problem of qualitative transformation. In order to accomplish this, I will first discuss Berkeley's views on the metaphysics of so-called 'ordinary' objects, including human bodies, and then apply this view to the resurrection of the dead, ultimately showing that, for Berkeley, the radical transformation of the body in the resurrection is no more problematic than the case of a straight oar appearing bent when one end is inserted in water. (shrink)