《Lynne Rudder Baker》.pdfVIP

Christian Materialism in a Scientific Age Lynne Rudder Baker University of Massachusetts Amherst Most Christians are dualists. They believe, in Dean Zimmerman’s words, “the doctrine that each human person is an immaterial substance, a soul—or at least, that each of us has a soul as part of us. 1 Materialism, as I’ll use the word, is denial of dualism so characterized. Many Christians who have argued against Christian materialism have construed Christian materialism quite narrowly—for example, as the view that “no separation of person from bodily organism is possible. 2 These Christian dualists do not distinguish between two distinct theses: 3 (A) I cannot exist without my organic body. and (B) I cannot exist without some body that supports certain mental functions. I’ll call materialism that entails (A) ‘Type-I materialism’, and materialism that entails only (b) ‘Type-II materialism’. Traditional Christian Materialists—Peter van Inwagen (1995), Kevin Corcoran (2001), Trenton Merricks (Merricks 2007)—are all Type-I 4 materialists. Dualists typically argue against Type-I materialism without considering 5 Type-II materialism. Athough all materialists—both Type-I and Type-II—deny that we have immaterial souls, and that we cannot exist unembodied, only Type-II materialists 1 Zimmerman (2002, p. 315). 2 Cooper (1988, p. 22). 3 My use of modal terms like ‘can’ and ‘could’ indicate what Plantinga calls “broadly metaphysical possibility”. (Plantinga 2006, 4) 4 Van Inwagen (1995), Corcoran (2001), Merricks (2007). 5 E.g., see Plantinga (2006). 1 h