In contemporary philosophy of mind, ‘mind’ is often taken to refer to a person or self or subject. The term features in claims like ‘the mind is (or is not) the brain’. What is known as ‘the problem of other minds’ is the (alleged) problem of knowing whether those around you are as they appear to be (persons, selves, subjects) or whether they are actually zombies (mindless creatures). In this vein, ‘mind’ refers to a substantial individual, while the related term ‘mental’ may refer to an aspect or property of a substantial individual, as in the claim that ‘humans have mental and physical aspects or properties’. ‘Mind’ may also refer to a person’s goals or intentions (e.g. ‘what do you have in mind?’) and it may refer to modes of awareness or activity (as in the warning ‘mind your head’ or ‘please be mindful of the needs of others’). ‘Consciousness’ typically refers to states of awareness or subjective experience, as in claims that persons are conscious, self-aware subjects who have desires, beliefs, intentions, etc. Consciousness is often defined ostensively by examples, e.g. you are conscious (rather than not being conscious) when you are aware of yourself and your surroundings. You may be conscious in dream states as when you have vivid dreams (dream experiences may involve states of awareness, desire, fears, etc.) and can consciously recollect such dreams. In contemporary thought, states of consciousness are often construed as phenomenologically evident to the subject who is conscious. It is widely held that persons (or subjects, minds, or souls) are conscious, whereas the state of consciousness is not itself conscious, just as persons engage in thinking and running, but the activities of thinking and running are not themselves thinking and running. The terms ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’ are linked when someone claims that humans are (or have) minds and act with conscious, mindful intentions. The terms become religiously charged under many conditions, for example in traditions that refer to God as an all-knowing, all-powerful, good creator. Such a reference at least appears to refer to God as a supremely mindful, conscious reality.
Given this initial understanding of mind and consciousness, they seem to have profound religious and philosophical significance. In theistic religious traditions – e.g. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, theistic Hinduism, Sikhism, some Indigenous African religions – the divine is described and addressed as a knowing, wise, powerful creator, revealed in and through the world and in human history through prophets, sages, and providential events. These traditions suggest, or at least imply, that the divine is not a mindless, non-conscious force. Rather, the divine is mindful on an extraordinary, perhaps unsurpassable level, and not lacking in consciousness. Concepts of mind and consciousness are also deeply embedded in many non-theistic religious traditions, as in monistic Hinduism and Buddhism which, in different ways, posit levels of consciousness, reincarnation, Karma, and important teachings about minds and mindfulness. Philosophically and theologically, contemporary concepts of mind and consciousness play a key role in reflections on the credibility of religious and secular views of reality, religious pluralism, religious experience, theories about human nature and animals, the philosophy of science, the theory of knowledge, value theory, and morality.
1.1 Mind and consciousness in Christianity
This article is focused on mind and consciousness in Christianity. The Christian Bible contains abundant references to God and creation that invite recognition of mind and consciousness. While the Hebrew and Greek terms in the Bible that are translated as ‘mind’ abound (e.g. ‘and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’, Mark 12:30), neither ‘mind’ nor ‘consciousness’ appear in the earliest Christian creeds (the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed). However, mind and consciousness are implied in biblical and subsequent theological claims about God’s awareness of creation. This includes God knowing the true inner desires, passions, virtues, and vices of creatures; God’s active role in human history; and the language of the creeds about God’s creation, the incarnation, redemption, the crucifixion and resurrection, and final judgment. There seems to be no substantial area of Christian thought and practice that does not have some bearing on matters of mind and consciousness. Claims about revelation concern, for example: the mindful, conscious awareness of the divine; the practice of different forms of prayer (petitionary, confessional, adoration, etc.); questions about God’s awareness and power, and the fitting states of mind of those praying; virtually all aspects of moral theology, which involves evaluations of conscious, mindful thoughts, intentions, desires, acts and omissions; and more. This article focuses on the nature of mind and consciousness as it bears on fundamental claims about human nature and God.
In two millennia of theological reflection, the terms ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’ have had a complex history. There is considerable contemporary debate about that history, with terms being employed in the debate like dualism, materialism/physicalism (the two terms are usually treated synonymously), hylomorphism, panpsychism, holism, idealism, etc. This article will define such terms below, but it is important to appreciate that such terms were unknown to biblical authors and early Christian theologians. Still, a prevailing theological tendency historically has been to recognize that the God of Christianity is neither identical to nor constituted by creation; God is instead the creator and sustainer of the creation. The Christian God is traditionally thought to be incorporeal (immaterial or nonphysical), omnipresent, and not limited to some object in the created order. Orthodoxy conceives of the second person of the Trinity becoming incarnate as Jesus Christ, but this is a matter of embodiment rather than the incorporeal God becoming identical with a physical body. Moreover, the incarnate Jesus would come to be described in much of Christian theology as wholly God (totus Deus) but not the whole of God (totum Dei). Interestingly, God’s presence in the creation was articulated by some medieval philosophers through the analogy of the soul’s relation to its body; one may be wholly present in feeling a pain in one’s foot, but that foot is not the whole of you or the soul.
Some contemporary theologians believe that there are compelling biblical and theological reasons for thinking that created persons are physical (with mental aspects). There is however a strong theological tradition, historical and contemporary, which contends that while created persons are fully embodied they are not identical with their material bodies; they are or contain souls which are incorporeal or nonphysical. The book of Genesis contains the narrative of God breathing the breath of life (nephesh) into Adam who is formed from the dust of the ground (Gen 2:7). This suggests a holistic anthropology, rather than body-soul dualism. However, as James Barr observes, the Hebrew terms nephesh and ruah are sometimes used to refer to an element in human nature that is distinctive and possibly separable from the material body (Barr 1992; see Isa 26:9; Ps 86:13; Job 23:31; Wis 12:7; Bar 2:17; 1 Enoch 9:3). In History of the Concept of Mind, Paul Macdonald writes that the book of Maccabees
several times explicitly demonstrates body-soul dualism in so far the immortal soul separates itself from the body in death. According to the speaker, death is the right way to immortality, the victor’s prize for virtue, at the hour of death the soul of the righteous is received by the patriarchs. (Macdonald 2019: 91–92)
It is hard to understand verses such as Eccl 12:6–7 without seeing them as conveying the idea that human persons are more than their bodies; death is described in these terms: ‘the dust [body] will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it’.
Turning to the New Testament, there are many disputes about whether some form of soul-body dualism is present. N. T. Wright (whose work is treated in section 4) argues (along with others) against soul-body dualism on both biblical and theological grounds, whereas J. W. Cooper argues for what he calls ‘holistic dualism’ in the New Testament (Cooper 1989). A case for some form of New Testament dualism involves many passages and teachings, including Jesus’ parables (e.g. the poor man dying and then being carried to the bosom of Abraham, Luke 16:19–26), Christ’s crucifixion (Matt 26:38 and 27:50), Christ’s descent into hell after death (1 Pet 4:6; Eph 4:9), and especially passages such as 2 Cor 5:1–10 which appear to support the view that when persons die there is an intermediate state in which they may be with God prior to bodily resurrection. The traditional interpretation of this passage is that it affirms such an intermediate state (e.g. Aquinas 2012; Summa Theologiae III.59.5), and such a state is difficult to conceive unless persons are more than their material bodies. Historically, many Christians have held that at the time of death, those who are redeemed immediately are in the presence of God (inspired by verses such as Phil 1:21–23; 2 Cor 5:1–10; Heb 9:27). This again suggests some form of soul-body dualism, because when such saints are in the presence of God their bodies may have been destroyed – in the case of martyrdom perhaps eaten by wild beasts or cannibals (something that created anxiety for Christian accounts of the resurrection of the body). This intermediate state is sometimes described in terms of disembodiment, but is principally referred to as being, prior to the resurrection of the body, in the presence of God (whether reembodied or disembodied) at the moment of death or, in extreme cases, the annihilation of their earthly bodies.
Other ostensibly dualist verses include 2 Cor 12:2–4 where Paul boasts that he was caught up into paradise, though he could not remember whether he was in his body or out of it, suggesting he identifies himself as a soul that can exist without a body. There are also passages which suggest that belief in some kind of soul-body dualism was an element among Jesus’ contemporaries (not just the Pharisees, who affirmed life after death). When Jesus asked his disciples what people thought about his identity, it appeared that some thought he was John the Baptist, others that he was Elijah, and others still that he was Jeremiah, or one of the prophets (Matt 16:13–14). Even Herod, who had John the Baptist executed, wondered if Jesus was John (Matt 14:20). Given that it is reasonable to assume that John the Baptist’s body could easily be located, it seems that some people thought Jesus might be John’s reembodied soul. Virtually all Christian sources that bear on theological anthropology – the New Testament, early Christian theology, and the creeds – affirm the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of humans, but these have historically been interpreted by many in accord with soul-body dualism. The incorporeal second member of the Trinity became embodied materially as Jesus of Nazareth. After death and prior to resurrection, he (as a soul) descended into hell while his body was in the tomb. As the bodily resurrected Christ he was recognizable (sometimes by his wounds) but capable of transformed powers (including ascension). Many Christians believe that Christ (as a member of the Godhead) is omnipresent (not limited to a human body) and even made present sacramentally through the Eucharist (see Taliaferro 2010). This seems to comport better with soul-body dualism than to suppose Jesus was only a corporeal, circumscribable, material body.
The resurrection of humans has been understood by many (but not all) Christians as a reuniting of soul and body, albeit a resurrected body which is imperishable and spiritual (1 Cor 15:42, 44; section 4 will consider theological objections to dualism). Some critics think soul-body dualists make the resurrection of the body unnecessary or superfluous: why should God bother with physical resurrection rather than sustain human souls in a disembodied state? Some soul-body dualists insist on the intrinsic goodness of embodiment and treat passages like 1 Corinthians 15 as a call to have reverence for our embodied life (see section 4). Nevertheless, significant Christian theologians and philosophers, historical and contemporary, maintain that there is some biblical support for dualism (see Farris 2023). The claim is rarely put in terms of proof. Paul Gundry presents the following confident portrait:
Paul along with most Jews and other early Christians habitually thought of man as a duality of two parts, corporeal and incorporeal, meant to function in unity but distinct and capable of separation [...] There is no single formula by which Paul expresses his dualist view of human nature, but terms such as ‘inner man’, ‘spirit’, ‘mind’, and ‘heart’ all refer to the incorporeal aspect or part, and terms such as ‘outer man’, ‘flesh’, ‘body’, ‘members’, and so forth all refer to the corporeal aspect or part. (Gundry 1976: 154–155)
Gundry’s thesis is not obvious to many contemporary readers, but historically some kind of soul-body dualism took hold in early Christian thought and emerged as a major force.
Soul-body dualism is hinted at in the post-Nicene creeds, as when the Council of Chalcedon referred to Jesus as having ‘a rational soul and body’. Some form of dualism that recognizes the distinct reality of the soul (or mind) and body (often referred to as substance dualism) was nurtured and developed by Clement of Alexandria, Origin of Alexandria, Augustine of Hippo, the Florentine Academy, Reformation theologians such as John Calvin, the Cambridge Platonists, modern philosophers such as René Descartes (who was greatly influenced by Augustine), John Locke, and Thomas Reid, and by some of the most active contemporary Christian philosophers (Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga). For a clear commitment to a soul-body distinction, consider the reformer John Calvin:
Moreover, there can be no question that man consists of a body and a soul; meaning by soul, an immaterial though created essence, which is his nobler part. Sometimes he is called a spirit. But though the two terms, while they are used together differ in their meaning, still, when spirit is used by itself it is equivalent to soul, as when Solomon speaking of death says, that the spirit returns to God who gave it (Eccl 12:7). And Christ, in commending his spirit to the Father, and Stephen his to Christ, simply mean, that when the soul is freed from the prison-body, God becomes its perpetual keeper. (Calvin 1960: 161)
Reference to the soul and body comes to be used in Christian liturgy. The Book of Common Prayer, for example, invites believers to present their souls and bodies as an oblation to God. The practice of prayerfully seeking the aid and intercession of the saints also suggests that individual persons who have died can be aware of – and act on behalf of – the living, prior to the resurrection of their bodies (such intercessions have been sought even while venerating parts of the bodies of saints as relics). For a sympathetic portrayal of such prayerful intercession, see Benedicta Ward’s account of the practice of the great philosophical theologian Anselm of Canterbury (Ward 2009).
As noted, theological anthropology that recognizes souls and bodies is often referred to as substance dualism. ‘Substance dualism’ can be a misleading term for several reasons. First, ‘dualism’ (literally, ‘two-ism’) suggests there are only two kinds of things (events or substances), whereas those classified as substance dualists have often believed there are an indefinite number. In some recent theology, ‘dualism’ is associated with a denigration of the body and material embodiment (McFague 1987), whereas many so-called substance dualists affirm the goodness of material embodiment (Taliaferro 2001). This objection will be addressed in section 4.
Critics sometimes neglect the way that many who are classified as dualists prize the integration of soul and body. Many early Christian theologians who recognized souls and bodies were adamant about the body-and-soul redemption of human beings (e.g. Justin Martyr, Athenagoras of Athens, Irenaeus; see Jurgens 1970: 63, 72, 99). The insistence on the value of the body by Irenaeus and others was often in explicit opposition to Gnosticism, which advanced a kind of hyper-dualism that valorized the soul while vilifying or denigrating the body (this sometimes involved denying that Jesus was truly incarnate or materially embodied as a human). The term ‘dualism’ was first introduced in the nineteenth century to describe Zoroastrianism, so none of the great ‘dualists’, from Plato to Augustine to Descartes, described themselves as such. While the term ‘dualism’ is a latecomer to theology and philosophy, there is evidence that some form of dualism is a natural or common-sense view of persons (Wellman 1990: 50; see also Martin and Barresi 2006). What Dean Zimmerman writes about dualism and philosophical debate and philosophical scrutiny can be said about theological debate and theological scrutiny:
A serious philosophical debate about the relative merits of dualism and materialism will seem anachronistic to some. But really, it should need no defense. Dualism has arguably been the majority view for as long as we have records about such things; and perhaps, given the way our minds work, it is inevitable that we will continue to think of ourselves in dualistic ways. As the default assumption of humankind, dualism surely deserves philosophical scrutiny. (Zimmerman 2024: xiii; on the pervasiveness of dualism, he cites Paul Bloom’s Descartes’ Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human, 2005)
Thus, even if some theologians reject the idea that dualism is integral to biblical and subsequent Christian history, they may still wish to address what Christianity has to say to the embedded – apparently natural – human proclivity for dualism. Christian theologians may have at least two additional reasons to be interested in dualism: the critique of dualism has been paired with the critique of theism (e.g. if the idea of an incorporeal soul is incoherent then so is the idea of an incorporeal God) and, conversely, the plausibility of dualism has been used to argue for the plausibility of theism (see, for example, J. P. Moreland’s Consciousness and the Existence of God, 2008).