The notion of substance has been very influential when
it comes to understanding the nature of being human. For example, the great
reformer John Calvin understood being human as a combination of a soul and a
body. The soul is to be understood as an immortal yet created essence which is
the nobler part of a human. He explains that “although properly it (the soul) is
not spatially limited, still, set in a body, it dwells there as in a house”
(ICR, I, 15, 6). More recently the Christian philosophers J.P Moreland and William Lane Craig have stated that
it is “clear that the Scriptures teach that the soul/spirit is an immaterial
component different from the body”. Once the framework of substance is in place
the option narrows down to either monism (one substance) or dualism (two
substances). Reformational philosophy rejects substance dualism, but it does
not thereby endorse substance monism, rather it rejects the substance framework
itself (see §31).
Now while recognising that reformational philosophy unanimously rejects any notion of a substantial and immortal soul, it should be noted that there are a variety of positions on how to understand the religious depth of human life and its concrete expression both structurally and in terms of traditional theological views concerning death, the intermediate state and the resurrection. In this section I will try to outline what I consider to be the view most consistent with a Biblical-reformational trajectory aiming to work from the creation-fall-redemption motive, however the following is probably the most tentative section of this introduction. My comments will be guided by three claims: the whole human person lives, the whole person dies, and the whole person is resurrected.
Firstly the human person lives as an integral unity. There are many different terms in scripture used to describe the human person, ‘heart’, ‘soul’, ‘spirit’, ‘flesh’, ‘body’, ‘image’ etc. these always describe the whole human person from a specific angle, they are not part of a structural, or theoretical, account setting out the components of being human. We have already seen that the Bible uses the term “heart” to refer to the centre of human existence in response to God. Rather than our soul being something immaterial the scripture speaks of satisfying our soul with food and drink (Psalm 78:18, Luke 12:19). Far from being immortal and imperishable our soul, or Nephesh in the Old Testament, signals the precarious position of life being subject to harm and danger as well as the need for deliverance (Ex. 4:19; 1 Sam. 23:15, Jos. 9:24, 2 Kings 7:7). The soul can be destroyed and die (Jos. 10:28, 30, 32, 35, 37, 39, Ez. 18:4, 20), and so also could be saved from danger and death (Jer. 51:8, Jos. 2:13, Ps 17:13). In the New Testament the term ‘soul’ (psyche) and the adjective ‘soulish’ (psychikos) can even have a negative connotation as in 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul contrasts our present mortal/corruptible body as a psychikos (natural) body, in contrast to our future immortal resurrection body as a pneumatikos (spiritual) body. Here the focus is clearly on the whole embodied person leaving no room for a conception of an immaterial soul.
Secondly the whole person really dies at the moment of death. When we understand this it is not so surprising that in the Bible the term soul can be used to refer to a dead person (Lev. 19:28; 21:1, 11; 22:4; Num. 5:2; 6:6, 11). Further the scriptures clearly teach that death is really death, that dead people know nothing and do nothing (Job 14:21; Psalm 6:6; 115:17; 146:4; Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10; John 9:4; Acts 2:29). Corlinus Vonk has also argued this point from God’s warning (Gen 2:17) that death would be the result of disobedience. It is rather Satan who contradicted this saying that death would not really happen (Gen. 3:4), the theory that the soul survives after death detracts somewhat from the seriousness of death as the punishment for sin (Rom. 6:23; James 1:15). In response to the question “Are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob dead or alive right now?” Vonk asks the counter question, among other comments and clarifications, “Is David dead or alive right now?”. Alongside the account of David’s death and burial in 1 Kings 2 he also refers to the apostle Peter in Acts 2:29 “Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day”.
Now while recognising that reformational philosophy unanimously rejects any notion of a substantial and immortal soul, it should be noted that there are a variety of positions on how to understand the religious depth of human life and its concrete expression both structurally and in terms of traditional theological views concerning death, the intermediate state and the resurrection. In this section I will try to outline what I consider to be the view most consistent with a Biblical-reformational trajectory aiming to work from the creation-fall-redemption motive, however the following is probably the most tentative section of this introduction. My comments will be guided by three claims: the whole human person lives, the whole person dies, and the whole person is resurrected.
Firstly the human person lives as an integral unity. There are many different terms in scripture used to describe the human person, ‘heart’, ‘soul’, ‘spirit’, ‘flesh’, ‘body’, ‘image’ etc. these always describe the whole human person from a specific angle, they are not part of a structural, or theoretical, account setting out the components of being human. We have already seen that the Bible uses the term “heart” to refer to the centre of human existence in response to God. Rather than our soul being something immaterial the scripture speaks of satisfying our soul with food and drink (Psalm 78:18, Luke 12:19). Far from being immortal and imperishable our soul, or Nephesh in the Old Testament, signals the precarious position of life being subject to harm and danger as well as the need for deliverance (Ex. 4:19; 1 Sam. 23:15, Jos. 9:24, 2 Kings 7:7). The soul can be destroyed and die (Jos. 10:28, 30, 32, 35, 37, 39, Ez. 18:4, 20), and so also could be saved from danger and death (Jer. 51:8, Jos. 2:13, Ps 17:13). In the New Testament the term ‘soul’ (psyche) and the adjective ‘soulish’ (psychikos) can even have a negative connotation as in 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul contrasts our present mortal/corruptible body as a psychikos (natural) body, in contrast to our future immortal resurrection body as a pneumatikos (spiritual) body. Here the focus is clearly on the whole embodied person leaving no room for a conception of an immaterial soul.
Secondly the whole person really dies at the moment of death. When we understand this it is not so surprising that in the Bible the term soul can be used to refer to a dead person (Lev. 19:28; 21:1, 11; 22:4; Num. 5:2; 6:6, 11). Further the scriptures clearly teach that death is really death, that dead people know nothing and do nothing (Job 14:21; Psalm 6:6; 115:17; 146:4; Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10; John 9:4; Acts 2:29). Corlinus Vonk has also argued this point from God’s warning (Gen 2:17) that death would be the result of disobedience. It is rather Satan who contradicted this saying that death would not really happen (Gen. 3:4), the theory that the soul survives after death detracts somewhat from the seriousness of death as the punishment for sin (Rom. 6:23; James 1:15). In response to the question “Are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob dead or alive right now?” Vonk asks the counter question, among other comments and clarifications, “Is David dead or alive right now?”. Alongside the account of David’s death and burial in 1 Kings 2 he also refers to the apostle Peter in Acts 2:29 “Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day”.
If
the whole person goes down to the grave in death then it can rightly be said, thirdly,
that it is the whole person who is raised from the dead. This is exactly the
language used in scripture. There is no teaching that the body will be raised
and so be reunited with the soul, rather the Bible speaks consistently that the
dead are raised (see for example John 5:24-25, 11:23, Philippians 3:11, Acts
23:6, 24:21, 1 Corinthians15).
The preceding gives some indication of the worldview
background to rejecting substance dualism, we now make some brief comments on why
reformational philosophy has rejected substance dualism. In our discussion we
have approach the question of our human nature in two different ways. Firstly
we considered the existential question of what it means to be human (§32). On this we noted that it
is a question that is more than philosophical, it concerns who we are in a
fundamental sense and this is something that cannot be answered at a
theoretical level. We are fundamentally creatures responding to God, our
meaning as image bearers of God is found in our religious choice of direction
towards or away from God. We are persons who know the difference between good
and evil. This is our most basic understanding of what it means to be human and
we can say that this takes a basically second-person perspective. Viewing the
human person in terms of two substances body and soul takes a third-person theoretical
perspective. There is nothing wrong as such with taking such a perspective,
however it has been an emphasis of this introduction that one of the central
insights of reformational philosophy has been to recognise the limits of a
theoretical perspective for understanding the fulness of reality. The nature of
our selfhood is a mystery to theoretical reflection, to talk in terms of an
abstract notion of a thing is to not talk about the true nature of a human
person, this is a further reason to reject a substantial soul.
The
second approach we have taken is the structural analysis of the human body (§33). This fits with the theoretical third-person perspective and so suits
better a comparison with substance dualism. As we have made clear, the reformational
position rejects philosophical notions of substances and instead acknowledges
the many-sidedness of the existence of all things and their interrelatedness
within the order of creation. This presupposes an integral creation order which
cannot be reduced to one substance nor split into two substances, further its
critical view of theoretical thought will not allow for a view that takes
humans as phenomenologically holistic at a surface level while reverting to
ontological dualism at a more fundamental level as seems to be the position of
John Cooper. Now while the reformational view of the many-sidedness of the
person has been given a theoretical elaboration it still allows room for the
first- and second-person perspective. This can be seen in that each modal
aspect in relation to the human person must always be understood as an
expression of the person and as tied up in subject-subject relations with other
persons. Though the human person shares in this many-sidedness, we have also
had to take notice of the ‘spiritual’ root unity of the person in terms of the
human heart. This spiritual unity is existential, deeply personal and
fundamentally related to persons, any attempt to find a unifying factor linked,
as a separate substance, with reason, language, moral sense or any combination
of the later modal aspects ends with a third-person perspective, an
illegitimate reification, and so loses sight of ourselves as persons. To
understand the human person in terms of properties, essences, or substances is
to take us away from the personal as responding to God.
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