A Tale of Two Anthropologies: Physicalism and Holistic Dualism

In my first article in this series, I outlined two prominent answers to the fundamental question “What is a human being?” – a question we must answer to foster true human flourishing. In this second article, I will argue against one answer (physicalism) and in favour of the alternative (holistic dualism).

Three Arguments Against Physicalism

1. Physicalism Fails to Explain Our Experiences

As discussed briefly in my first article in this series, physicalism is the view that we are exclusively, or at least fundamentally, material beings. According to physicalism, any seemingly immaterial aspects of human persons (thoughts, feelings, desires, choices, and our very selves) can ultimately be explained in terms of the chemistry and physics of the brain. This is reflected in the Christian physicalism of neurotheologians such as Curt Thompson and Jim Wilder.

Physicalism is falsified if even one mental event cannot be reduced to a neural event. In my recent book Have We Lost Our Minds? [1] I offer three common experiences that cannot be reduced to the chemistry and physics of the brain.

The first experience is our first-person perspective. Suppose you are the world’s leading audiologist. You know more than anyone about the physics and chemistry of hearing. However, suppose also that you have been deaf since birth. But then, one day, you wake up and hear a bird chirping, the sound of your husband grinding coffee, and wind rustling the leaves on trees outside. At that moment, do you know anything more about hearing than you did the night before? You certainly do. You know what it is like to hear. You have a first-person perspective on hearing. In fact, even if you were undergoing brain surgery when you began to hear, you would still know more about your own experience of hearing than the surgeon, though he would know more about what was occurring in your brain at that time. As T. L. S. Sprigge observes:

The main reason for holding [that there is a distinction between the mental and physical] is that it seems entirely possible that a scientist should have complete knowledge of a human organism and a physical system and yet be ignorant of the special character of that individual’s consciousness. [2]

Our first-person experiences simply cannot be reduced to third-person accounts of chemical and physical interactions in our brains.

Second is our experience of free will. We make choices constantly, such as your choice to read this article or what you will do after you finish it. These are choices precisely because you could have done otherwise. You didn’t have to read this article, and you can do any number of things with the rest of your day. However, matter is, by definition, determined. Given certain prior conditions, subsequent conditions result. For instance, the velocity and trajectory of the cue ball when it strikes the 8-ball in billiards determines the trajectory and velocity of the 8-ball. This makes playing billiards possible. It doesn’t matter how large or small the material elements are—pool balls on a billiards table or microscopic atoms in a brain; in all cases, the behaviour of the physical objects is determined. David Papineau summarises:

All physical events are determined, or have their chances determined, by prior physical events according to physical laws. … A purely physical specification, plus physical laws, will always suffice to tell us what is physically going to happen. [3]

Therefore, since our neural activity is determined but our choices are free, our free will cannot be reduced to the chemistry and physics of our brains.

Third is our experience of reason. As you read this article, you are considering the arguments I’m outlining and determining if they seem reasonable to you. However, our rationality can no more be caused by neural activity than our free will can. Deterministic matter must abide by the laws of chemistry and physics, which do not include evaluating truth claims and drawing conclusions. As J. B. S. Haldane summarises well:

If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. [4]

So again, matter alone cannot account for our rationality.

2. Physicalism Fails to Explain Our Unity at Any Given Time

Concentrate on an object nearby. You will notice its size, shape, color, motion, and (if you pick it up) its texture, temperature, and weight. If it is something important to you, you will also remember when you acquired it and experience an emotion along with that recollection. Each of these various experiences of size, shape, weight, and meaning is correlated with various neurons firing in various parts of your brain. But you have one unified experience of this object. How can we explain this? Physicalists have no explanation of how vastly different neural events occurring throughout the brain can lead to our unified conscious experience of the world around us. John Searle observes:

How exactly do neurobiological processes in the brain cause consciousness? This is the most important question facing us in the biological sciences, yet it is frequently evaded, and frequently misunderstood when not evaded. [5]

Physicalism simply cannot account for our unity of consciousness at any given time.

3. Physicalism Fails to Explain Our Unity Through Time

I keep pictures of my children when they were younger. I look forward to this article being published. My wife and I are saving for our retirement years. These are but a few of thousands of indications that I and other people exist through time. It is truly my children in those pictures. I will hear of this article’s publication, and my wife and I will travel after we retire. However, physicalism cannot make sense of these common-sense assumptions. If I am nothing more than matter, then when the matter is gone, I am gone. Yet every atom in my body will be replaced in at least seven years – which would mean that if physicalism is true, I (this cluster of atoms) did not exist seven years ago, and I (thing grouping of atoms) will not exist in seven years! But this claim is clearly false and entails egregious implications, including the inability to hold people accountable for past actions. This is a third reason to reject physicalism.

The Best Alternative: Holistic Dualism

To explain our first-person perspective, our free will, our rationality, our unity at any given time, and our unity through time, we must ultimately be immaterial, not physical, beings. Each of us must be a soul that “stands under” all these properties, unifies our experiences, and continues through time. This is known as a substantial soul. However, we certainly have a material dimension as well – a body. Therefore, we are composed of two elements: a soul and a body. We are a duality.

While acknowledging this duality, we must avoid two extremes. First is the error of radical dualism, which views the relationship between our soul and body as superficial and even harmful to our well-being. According to this view, the soul is trapped in the body and flourishes only as it is liberated. Radical dualism is contrary to the biblical texts, which affirm the goodness of our bodies as part of God’s creation and the role of our bodies in human flourishing. It is also contrary to the biblical teaching that we will be reunited with our bodies in the final resurrection, to live incarnate forevermore.

Yet we must avoid the other extreme of, due to the deep functional unity of body and soul, concluding we are ultimately a composite of the two. This, too, cuts against the clear teaching of Scripture that one day our bodies will die yet we will continue to live. For instance, consider Matthew 22:23–24, where Jesus sided with the Pharisees against the Sadducees, who denied our ability to live after our body dies.

Holistic dualism avoids both of these errors. It affirms holism – i.e., the deep unity of soul and body and thus the intrinsic value of the body (and the physical realm more broadly). Yet it also affirms dualism – that we are ultimately a soul united to a body but able to live apart from the body after death. Consistent with both the biblical and philosophical data, John Cooper defends holistic dualism in concluding, “There is no need for pitting the truths of revelation against the current results of reason. One need not pick between biblical orthodoxy and an adequate theoretical model of human nature.” [6]

Conclusion

Now that we have seen that physicalism is a failed anthropology and that holistic dualism offers a sound biblical and philosophical alternative, the next step is to explore the implications of holistic dualism for our flourishing. In my third article, I will consider how a proper grasp of holistic dualism can help us love God and others more fully.

References

1. Stan W. Wallace, Have We Lost Our Minds? Neuroscience, Neurotheology, the Soul, and Human Flourishing (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2024).
2. L. S. Sprigge, The Importance of Subjectivity (Oxford: Clarendon, 2011), 9.
3. David Papineau, Philosophical Naturalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 16.
4. B. S. Haldane, “When I Am Dead,” in Possible Worlds and Other Essays (London: Chatto & Windus, 1927), 209.
5. John Searle, “The Problem of Consciousness,” in Social Research: An International Quarterly 60 (1993), 3.
6. John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 230.