Holistic Dualism: How to Best Love God and Love Others

In the preceding two articles, (linked here and here) I have highlighted the importance of having a proper understanding of what we are, in order to flourish. I have also shown how both biblical studies and philosophy point to holistic dualism as the best understanding of our fundamental nature. In this final article, I will explain how an understanding of holistic dualism leads to better loving God and loving others.

Holistic Dualism and Loving God

In Romans 6, Paul discusses how we use our bodies to live in the world, either glorifying God or dishonouring Him. This highlights the two-way causal relations between our soul and body, a central aspect of holistic dualism. Dallas Willard develops this anthropology in his work on spiritual disciplines, helping us understand why physical activities (such as fasting) help us form our soul (spiritual formation).

Conversely, even very “spiritual” activities involve the body. Willard states:

“Every spiritual discipline, even things like memorising Scripture, involves physical energy or power. You engage your body in it.” [1]

Understanding three features of our soul helps us further understand the nature of spiritual formation. This section may seem complex, but bear with me and you will see shortly why it is important.

First, our soul is composed of various capacities, such as the ability to think, feel, desire, or believe. These capacities come in hierarchies. For instance, I can tell you the sum of 12 x 12. However, I cannot tell you the derivative of a function with respect to X. This is because I have the first-order capacity to do multiplication (i.e., I can exhibit that capacity right now) but I don’t have the first-order capacity to do calculus. Yet I do have the capacity to obtain the capacity to do calculus – a second-order capacity.

I could take a calculus course and, by studying diligently, learn how to calculate derivates. Yet this, in turn, requires the third-order capacity to think abstractly in order to understand what I am taught in the course. Ultimately, this hierarchy ends in a highest-order capacity (in this case, the capacity of reason). This and all our other highest-order capacities constitute our human nature.

As we live out our highest-order capacities at the first-order level, we are said to be maturing – increasingly living according to our nature, as we were created to live. Jesus showed us what this looks like in full bloom. His highest-order capacities to have proper emotions, embrace true beliefs, make proper choices, and so on were constantly exhibited at the first-order level. As a result, he flourished: “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52). This process of maturation also leads to our flourishing.

Second, these capacities are grouped into faculties. For instance, the capacities to think and believe are within our mental faculty, while the capacity to choose is part of our volitional faculty. There are six faculties of the soul, each containing various capacities: the mental, volitional, emotional, social, spiritual, and sensory faculties. Each of our capacities influences the other capacities within a faculty and capacities in other faculties. I explain the significance of all this in Have We Lost Our Minds?:

Understanding this rich tapestry of causal relations within and among our soul’s faculties helps us identify how our thoughts are causally related to our desires and choices, and how these are also related to our emotions, actions, and relationships.

For example, I may be reading my Bible and considering what God has done for me (mental faculty). This results in my experiencing love for God (emotional faculty). Feeling this sense of love leads to the desire to develop even greater intimacy with God (mental faculty). Therefore, I choose to begin practicing the spiritual discipline of service to others, as a way to be more like Jesus (volitional faculty).

As I better understand what is happening “inside” myself in these various faculties of the soul, I can focus on engaging various faculties more intentionally, leveraging these causal connections to develop certain habits (tendencies or dispositions to exemplify certain capacities at the first-order level). These habits will, in turn, increasingly allow my spiritual faculty to exemplify its capacity of intimacy with God at the first-order level. [2]

Conversely, my soul’s deformation occurs when I allow one capacity to influence other capacities negatively. As James summarises, “Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:14–15).

Holistic Dualism and Loving Others

One way we love others is by being agents of God’s shalom in the world. This requires understanding what people fundamentally are and, therefore, how to best meet their fundamental needs. For instance, because people are fundamentally souls, missions will emphasise gospel proclamation. But in light of the functional unity of soul and body, Christian mission should also address people’s physical needs, for each person is an incarnate soul. The whole person will be ministered to.

We also love others by helping them live full and healthy lives. As we are fundamentally souls composed of various essential capacities, each person is truly and fully human whether or not that person is currently able to express these capacities at the first-order level.

Infants in the womb, the disabled, and the elderly who have lost many functional abilities are still equally human and valuable. In fact, the holistic dualist believes every person is equally human and valuable and thus has equal rights. Regardless of differences in expressed characteristics (such as ethnicity, gender, or socio-economic condition), each person deserves to be treated humanely simply in virtue of sharing the same human nature – the same ultimate set of capacities that constitute the human soul.

Finally, holistic dualism helps us love others through our professions. We see our colleagues, clients, students, or patients as souls deeply wed to their bodies. Therefore, we have good reason to serve them in both body and soul through our work.

For instance, educators who embrace holistic dualism will understand their role as more than simply teaching that which meets physical needs. The STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) will be important, as they help us develop technology to meet our very real bodily needs. But teaching the humanities, which address our soul’s needs for truth, beauty, and goodness, will be equally valuable. In this more robust view of education, students are most fully loved and served in light of all they are – body and soul.

Medical professionals who are holistic dualists will recognise that although a patient’s medical issue might be purely physical, it might also involve the person’s immaterial dimension as well (for instance, anxiety may be the ultimate cause of an ulcer). This allows physicians to serve their patients better by understanding and addressing the ultimate causes of illnesses, whether in the body and/or the soul. Furthermore, care for patients is also conveyed by asking how they are doing (as persons), not just reading their charts and diagnosing the problems (as if they are just machines).

The holistic dualist who runs a business will understand the need for adequate financial compensation that allows employees to maintain their physical well-being. Yet they will also understand that their employees have needs beyond their bodies and will find ways to care for their souls (such as encouraging them to maintain a healthy work-life balance).

These are but a few of the many ways holistic dualism helps us love others through our professions. In Have We Lost Our Minds? I offer examples from five more profession – architecture, law and politics, science, computer science, and vocational ministry – to further illustrate the far-reaching implications of a proper anthropology.

Conclusion

I begin the concluding chapter of Have We Lost Our Minds? with these words:

Our culture increasingly assumes only what we can see is real, including the body but not the soul. We must stop aiding our culture in sliding toward physicalism. This includes standing against neurotheology, which is leading many believers to join the ranks of practicing physicalists who live as if we are just bodies or brains. [3]

I hope that this brief three-part summary demonstrates why we must reject physicalism, including the Christian physicalism of neurotheologians, and embrace holistic dualism. As a result, I pray that you and those you influence will “flourish, like trees deeply rooted and nourished by a pure, unpolluted stream, vibrant and heavy with fruit in season” (Psalm 1:3, author’s paraphrase).

References

1. Dallas Willard, “Components of the Human Person,” in Jim Wilder, Renovated: God, Dallas Willard and the Church That Transforms (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2020), 64.
2. Stan Wallace, Have We Lost Our Minds? Neuroscience, Neurotheology, the Soul, and Human Flourishing (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2024), 156–57.
3. Wallace, Have We Lost Our Minds?