Thinking Christianly

Thinking Christianly


#8: What is the Soul, and Why Should We Care? (Part 2)

November 15, 2021

JP and Stan continue their conversation on the nature of the soul, the many implications of us being a soul, and objections to substance dualism.
In this podcast we discuss:

Ethical decision making in light of substance dualism
Why the soul is the only grounding for our intrinsic value
The centrality of substance dualism to ethical issues at the beginning, during, and end of life
Contemporary conversations around the question, “What are we?”
Why the soul is needed to make the body valuable
What happens when the body and soul are separated at death
How horror genres often assume substance dualism
Substance dualism and Darwinism
Objections to substance dualism

Resources mentioned during our conversation:

JP Moreland and Scott B. Rae, Body & Soul: Human Nature the Crisis in Ethics
JP Moreland, The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism
Thomas Nagel, Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False
Etienne Gilson, From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species, and Evolution
John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate
Stan W. Wallace, “What Are We? The Three Answers Underlying Many Spiritual, Moral, and Political Disagreements”