Christian Physicalism? Issues in Contemporary Protestantism By Joshua Farris, Ph.D. Introduction This first of two essays on theological anthropology in philosophical perspective is concerned with a growing trend in contemporary theological discourse, namely, Christian physicalism. 1 In short, Christian physicalism is the position that the created world is wholly physical, including humans, and that this is consistent with Christian doctrine. I say “growing trend” for a reason because Christian physicalism is a novelty in the wider Christian tradition, but, as of late, it has garnered significant attention as a plausible alternative to traditional anthropologies. Specifically, by considering Christian physicalism, I seek to answer two questions: (1) What is the state of the art on the physicalism/dualism discussion? (2) Is contemporary physicalism compatible with the tradition’s “similarity thesis” between God and humans? I set out to achieve this in three stages. First, I summarize the present state of the physicalist/dualist dialectic. Second, I explore one reason that favors the tradition’s identification of the human representation of God with the soul. Third, I lay out some recent contemporary defenses for the soul. I suggest that behind the defense of the soul reflected in the Christian tradition (both Catholic and Reformed) is what I term the “similarity” thesis between God and humans, and I deny that a physicalist anthropology has the resources to account for it. 2 The Present Physicalist/Dualist Dialectic Fascinating discussions are taking place in the analytic philosophical literature on human constitution. These discussions are, however, limited in perspective to a local frame. In other words, what does it mean to be a physical thing or a non-physical thing? Can a physicalist ontology of humans account for consciousness, first-person consciousness, moral knowledge, freedom of the will, and, most important, the persistence of personal identity (of which there is a not insignificant set of literature)? These are important discussions, undoubtedly, and the jury is still out on the merits of a physicalist ontology of human beings or, at least, whether it has significant advantage over a traditional immaterialist ontology that considers humans beings embodied souls. A materialist or physicalist holds the view that I am a physical being through and through and all the way down. Physicalists take it that there are different ways of thinking about the nature of what it means to be a human being, but they all share this common assumption that humans are physical bodily beings. There are of course different kinds of physicalism that focus on what is often called the hard problem of consciousness. The hard problem of consciousness concerns the nature of how consciousness as a distinct set of properties define properties of material things like gunk, particles, atoms or other higher-order physical objects that exist as organic products of the eco-system. Eliminative Physicalism is the view that these experiential properties of conscious experience are simply not a part of the ontological furniture as real substances, properties, or events. Reductive physicalism is the view that properties of the mind, qualia (properties of phenomenal experience, e.g., what it is like to taste chocolate), reduce to and are accounted for by the underling physical bits. Identity physicalism is the view that consciousness, or properties of a
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