Can I Survive Without my Body? Undercutting the Modal Argument

Abstract: Modal Arguments in the philosophy of mind purport to show that the body is not necessary for a human person’s existence. The key premise in these arguments are generally supported with thought experiments (e.g. I could either in some other bodily form or in a disembodied state). I argue that Christians endorsing the Doctrine of the Resurrection have good reason to deny this key premise. Traditional Christianity affirms that eschatological human existence is an embodied existence in the very bodies we inhabited while alive. The raises the Resurrection Question: why would God go through the trouble of resurrecting those bodies? I argue that adequately answering this question requires give up on Modal Arguments within the philosophy of mind.

1. IntroductionModal Arguments are a formidable challenge for substance physicalism about the mind

and persons. The key intuition driving the Modal Argument is that I could exist without my body. Christian philosophers have supported the truth of this intuition by appealing to the afterlife, especially the Doctrine of the Intermediary State—that there will be a time between bodily death and bodily resurrection when the human person will be “absent from the body, and present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). However, the intermediary state is not the final, glorified state. According to most of the Christian tradition, the final state is one in which human persons are embodied in the very same body they had while on earth. This presents us with a question to which Christian philosophers should have an answer: Why would God go through the trouble of resurrecting the very same body a human person had while on earth if that body is superfluous to that human person’s existence? I call this the Resurrection Question. Those holding that the body is necessary for the human person’s existence have a ready reply: “God’s raising every dead body…will not be merely some sort of spooky sideshow. Instead, it will be your only shot at life after death” (Merricks 2009, p. 478, see also van Inwagen 1978 and Corcoran 2006). Many Christian dualists (e.g. historically Bonaventure, Aquinas, and Scotus, and in contemporary philosophy Adams 2012, Davis 1993, Moreland 2013, Taliaferro 2001, Rickabaugh 2016) and Christian Constitutionalists (Baker 2000 and Corcoran 2006) agree that Christians should have an answer to the Resurrection Question. In this paper, I argue that an adequate response to the Resurrection Question undercuts Modal Arguments within the philosophy of mind, which some prominent Christian philosophers (notably Swinburne, Plantinga, Baker, and Taliaferro) have used to argue in favor of their views. I do not claim that the Doctrine of the Resurrection is incompatible with dualism or Constitutionalism. Rather, I argue that the Doctrine of the Resurrection undercuts at least one argument against the claim that a human person’s body is necessary for that human person’s existence. In other words, Christians must give up the Modal Argument, or fail to answer the Resurrection Question. I urge them to do the former.

The paper will proceed as follows. In §2, I survey three versions of the Modal Argument, arguing that each relies on an intuition that a human person could exist in some state other than the state with the body one presently has. In §3, I outline the Doctrine of the Resurrection. In particular, Christianity has it that eschatological life is life in the body that one had while on earth (which I call ‘Identical Embodiment’). Here I urge that Christians should have an answer to the Resurrection Question: why would God resurrect that very body? As I will show, I am not alone in insisting on a response to this question. In §4, I survey answers to the Resurrection

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Question, including metaphysical completeness, proper function, human flourishing, perfect happiness, divine justice, and satisfaction of appetite. I argue that Christians advocating the Modal Argument face a dilemma: either 1) they fail to answer the Resurrection Question, or 2) their account is incompatible with a key premise in the Modal Argument. Since some Christians (notably Swinburne) have argued for the key premise in their Modal Argument by appealing to a disembodied, conscious intermediate state, in §5, I address these concerns in light of the arguments made from §4.

2. Three Versions of the Modal ArgumentBefore I begin, I need to clarify my use of ‘substance dualism’ and ‘substance

physicalism’ (henceforth ‘dualism’ and ‘physicalism’ respectively, unless otherwise indicated).1 First, I intend these terms (in this paper) to refer only to human persons. Thus, that God is non-physical is no objection to Christian physicalism. Second, I recognize that dualism comes in many varieties, and that most Christian dualists embrace some form of interactive composite dualism, and with good reason when it comes to the Christian faith (see, Davis 1993, 2001, 2010, Conn 2008). On these accounts, the human person is identical to the composite of the non-physical soul and physical body. Thus, humans are neither purely physical nor purely non-physical. The kind of substance dualism I am criticizing in this paper is the view that humans possess a non-physical part, a soul, which is a substance distinct from the body. Third, when I speak of ‘physicalism,’ I have in mind the view that there is no non-physical part of the human person. Thus, on my usage, functionalism (in all its varieties, see Polger 2004, ch 3) are consistent with physicalism, and property dualism combined with substance physicalism is a form of physicalism. I admit there are some oddities that come from using the term in this way. Certain views that claim that the mind and the body are distinct substances of different kinds, but are both physical, will turn out to be physicalist. Here I have in mind Constitutionalists like Baker and Corcoran (who happily accept the label ‘physicalist’), and dualists like E. J. Lowe. On my usage of the term, all of these theorists are physicalists.

My target in this paper is any Christian who finds Modal Arguments in philosophy of mind compelling. The Modal Argument proceeds by making an assertion about the human person or self—that it could exist without its present body, asserting Leibniz’s Law, and concluding the the human person or self is not identical to the body. Taliaferro (1997) outlines the argument in the following way:

“Let ‘A’ refer to me and ‘B’ to my body.1. A is B (the hypothesis of the identity materialists).2. A cannot exist without B and B cannot exist without A. [Leibniz’s Law and 1]3. But A can exist without B and B can exist without A.4. Therefore premise ‘1’ is false; it is not the case that A is B” (1997, p. 173).

Similarly, Plantinga (2006, 2007) outlines the argument in this way:

5. It is possible for A to exist while B does not.2

1 I have no interest in quibbling over how to use these terms. Whether one ‘gets’ to call themselves a physicalist or dualist is not interesting. What is important is clarifying which views of the mind are under criticism in this paper.2 Plantinga does not explicitly say B can exist without A.

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6. Therefore, A has a property that B lacks (namely, the property of ‘being able to exist without B’).

7. Therefore, A≠B (by Leibniz’s Law and 6)

The argument(s) turn on 3 and 5. In support of premise 3, Taliaferro says that “the person may be envisaged as surviving the extinction of his or her body either in an altogether disembodied state or as reembodied” (p. 175). I will turn to the disembodied state in a moment, but Plantinga argues for 5 by the ‘Replacement Argument.’ Plantinga begins this argument by observing that we can replace a “heart, liver, [and] lungs” (p. 102). He then claims that it is logically possible that every macroscopic part of his body be rapidly replaced, such that his body would no longer exist. The replacement body (henceforth BR), is not identical to B. However, Plantinga thinks that he would continue to exist.

I will later argue that a proper understanding of the doctrine of the resurrection cuts against the intuition that B is destroyed while Plantinga continues to exist, and thus either B R is B, or Plantinga does not survive. However, note that even if the argument is sound, Plantinga has not shown that physicalism is false. The argument purports to show that B is not necessary Plantinga’s existence. On its own, this does not show that humans possess a non-physical substantial part. Constitutionalists endorse the conclusion. Indeed, Baker argues for her version of Constitutionalism by way of the Modal Argument. On her view, a particular body is not necessary for a person’s existence. Thus, she endorses 3 and 5. Admittedly, not all Constitutionalists do so. Corcoran claims that “if your body does not persist, then you do not persist” (2006, p. 73). While not all Constitutionalists can endorse the Modal Argument, all can (and do) endorse the conclusion. Since Constitutionalists do not posit the existence of a non-physical substantial part of the human person, the Modal Argument, as stated by Plantinga and Taliaferro, is compatible with physicalism.

Swinburne’s version of the Modal Argument, motivated by appealing to the possibility of the afterlife, does purport to show that human persons have a non-physical part. Swinburne’s Modal Argument has three premises:

8. “I am a conscious person and I exist in 1984” (1997, p. 323).9. “It is possible that I exist into 1985, given that I am conscious in 1984, even if my

body is totally destroyed and whatever else might be the case in 1984, compatible with these last two suppositions.” (1997, p. 323)

10. “It is not possible that I who am conscious in 1984 survive into 1985 if my body is totally destroyed, unless there is a non-bodily part of me in 1984, viz. a soul” (1997, p. 323).

11. Therefore, I have a soul in 1984.

Swinburne admits that his argument will have no force against committed physicalists, since they will reject 9: if a human’s body is destroyed, so is the human.3 However, Swinburne claims that the argument is intended for those who are agnostic, and he claims that 9 has considerable intuitive force (1996, p. 71). Crucially, ‘soul’ here denotes something that is distinct from the body, can exist separately from the body, and can function (at least in the sense of being conscious) when distinct from the body. One might think that 9 is required for the Christian,

3 Baker would reject 10, since the person might continue to exist as constituted by a new body after the old one is destroyed.

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since Christians generally affirm the existence of a time between death and resurrection (hence ‘intermediate’) when the dead are conscious and “present with the Lord” (2 Cor 5:8). In §5, I will argue that this is a mistake, and is in tension with the doctrine of the resurrection.

The Modal Argument relies on an intuition that a human person could exist without her body—whether in some other body or without any body whatsoever. Also, they all conclude that the body must be accidental to the human person—at best, an inessential part of the human person.4 In §4, I will argue that a proper understanding of the Doctrine of Resurrection undercuts the intuitive force behind all three versions, but first we must understand this doctrine.

3. The Doctrine of the Resurrection and the Resurrection QuestionAll orthodox Christian traditions affirm a corporeal eschatological state.5 That is,

Christian tradition and the New Testament affirm the eschatological bodily resurrection of the dead. Baker (2007a, 2007b) helpfully outlines three parts of the Doctrine of the Resurrection:6

A. Embodiment: “resurrection requires some kind of bodily life after death” (2007a, p. 368).B. Identity: “the very same person who exists on earth is to exist in an afterlife” (2007a, p.

368).C. Miracle: the afterlife is a gift from God.

While I agree that all three propositions are essential parts of the Doctrine of the Resurrection, given textual evidence, which I will provide in a moment, A could actually be stronger:

A*. Identical Embodiment: resurrection requires post-mortem life in a body numerically identical to one’s pre-mortem body.7

A* is needed to distinguish the Doctrine of the Resurrection from being a version of reincarnation, with the caveat that the last body one gets one keeps forever (see Mugg and Turner 2017, p. 133). In fact, resurrection of the dead has been “the cornerstone of the preaching of the church from the very beginning” (Hagner 1998, p. 99). Hagner comments:

…the death and resurrection of Jesus are not mere interludes in the story of God’s greater work, the establishment of his kingdom. Rather, they are themselves at the heart of God’s saving work—being the basis, means, and demonstration of the restoration of God’s rule. (Hagner 1998, p. 99).

4 Since Corcoran’s version of Constitutionalism claims that human persons are not identical to their body, his account is compatible with the conclusion. However, he rejects Modal Arguments since a specific body is necessary for the person. 5 My aim in this section is to explicate the Christian Doctrine of the Resurrection, not to argue that it is true, or even defend it. Whether the Christian Doctrine of the Resurrection is true is a different project than I have in this paper, in which I will assume that this doctrine is true and the examine the implications of that claim for the Modal Argument. 6 Baker argues that her Constitutionalism fits well with the doctrine of the resurrection, but I will not discuss her views in detail here (see Mugg and Turner 2017 for criticisms). Similarly to the dualists I will consider, if she is to account for the doctrine of the resurrection, the intuition motivating the Modal Argument is undercut.7 Baker denies Identical Embodiment, and has an argument against it, but her argument requires either 1) that it is logically impossible that the eschatological body be destroyed or 2) that something that is biological will, necessarily, cease to exist. I deny both of these claims. See (Mugg and Turner 2017, p. 128-130 for my argument).

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We can see that Hagner is right by examining Paul’s Corinthian Correspondence. Christ’s resurrection is the first instance of an already assured eschatologically future resurrection (cf. I Cor. 15:23-28; 51-57). Note Paul’s use of the Jewish idiom ‘firstfruits,’ which denotes the best of a harvest of crops. Paul asserts that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is ‘the firstfruits’ of a coming harvest, namely the resurrection (I Cor. 15:20). Since there are firstfruits, there is a harvest from which they come.8 Paul is using this idiom to tell his readers that Jesus’ resurrection ensures the bodily resurrection of the dead.9

Since Jesus’ resurrection is the “foreshadowing of the coming resurrection of the dead” (Hagner, p. 99), in order to understand the nature of our resurrection, we must look at Jesus’ resurrection. When we do, we find that, according to Christian theology, resurrection of the antemortem body is essential for eschatological afterlife.10

I begin with Christian Scripture. In I Cor. 15, Paul writes:

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (I Cor. 15:12-19)

Why is Paul so adamant that Christ’s resurrection guarantees the Apostle’s preaching and the hope that Christ’s followers have placed in Christ? Because if Jesus had not been resurrected he would be dead and incapable of helping his followers. As N.T. Wright has frequently pointed out, if Jesus had remained dead, his Jewish followers would have seen this as affirmation from God that Jesus was not the messiah, since that was always the pattern with putative messiahs who were later executed (Wright 2003). Since if Jesus had not been resurrected he would have remained dead, the same holds for Christ’s followers: if they are not resurrected, then they remain dead.11

Historically, undermining the resurrection has been taken as an undermining of the Christian faith.12 Thus Polycarp: whoever “says that [there is no] resurrection…is the first-born of Satan” (Polycarp 1996, p. 35). Likewise Irenaeus vehemently argues against any theology which might undermine the necessity of bodily resurrection for Christian hope (especially Gnosticism of various sorts) (1996, Book V).13 This defense of the importance of the resurrection continues through the later medieval context. For example, Aquinas argues from Aristotelian

8 While there is some disagreement about the timing of the firstfruits in ancient Hebrew practices, all agree that firstfruits imply a guaranteed harvest (see Holleman 1996, p. 51, Thiselton 2000, p. 1224).9 Since Jesus’ resurrection has already happened, but the eschatological resurrection has not, this is an instance of Christian theology’s ‘already and not yet.’ Paul implies in I Cor. 15 that the harvest has begun; its firstfruits are already presented in Jesus’ resurrection, but the full harvest (resurrection of all the dead) is not yet here.10 I will not argue that the Doctrine of the Resurrection is true (that is a separate discussion). I only intend to argue that Christianity teaches that God resurrects the antemortem body.11 Paul does not mean that Christ’s followers remain ‘asleep’ (i.e. dead). Rather, if there is no resurrection followers of Christ are destroyed/ruined/lost for good. In fact, the euphemism for death, ‘asleep,’ only makes sense if there will be a time at which that human person will (or may) wake up again. That is, the ‘asleep’ euphemism itself points to the resurrection (see Thiselton (2000, p. 1214) Watson (2005, p. 163), Turner (2015, p. 411, 419 notes 15 and 16)).12 See also Wright (2008, p. 43 and 148) and Willis (2006, p. 190-191). 13 In particular Irenaeus (1996, p. 560-561); Hill (1992, p. 188).

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principles that a disembodied human soul cannot remain disembodied; it must be joined again to its body at resurrection (Aquinas 1975, p. 299; Aquinas 1952, p. 473-484).

More recently, N. T. Wright has argued that Christian theology must refocus toward God’s putting “everything to rights” in this cosmos (Wright 2008, p. 142). Wright points to passages such as I Cor. 15, Romans 8, Revelation 21, and elsewhere, to argue that the New Testament, tells the story about how the God of Israel makes good on his Old Testament promises to put the world back in order. Eschatological afterlife is not disembodied existence in some far off heaven. Instead, eschatological afterlife is the ‘putting everything to rights’ of this very cosmos. Resurrection is central to God’s redemptive work of correcting his own fallen creation

Now, Jesus’ bodily resurrection is the beginning of the New Creation that God will eventually fully bring about. Since Jesus’ resurrection happened within this creation, the ‘New’ Creation is not numerically new; rather, it qualitatively differs from the way it pre-eschatologically is. In other words, it undergoes change. Rather than God abandoning or throwing away creation, humanity, or (indeed) our earthly bodies, God renews human beings because they bear God’s image. He puts humans the way he intended them to be (Farrow 2007, p. 216). This is the hope of the bodily resurrection (Wright 2008, p. 142-143, 153). Murray Harris helpfully puts it this way: “The Christian’s desire and destiny is not for release from embodiment, but for the redemption of the body through resurrection (Rom. 8:23)” (Harris 1998, p. 168, emphasis mine).14

I can now articulate my argument for Identical Embodiment (A*) being part of the Christian view of the afterlife. Because the New Creation just is this creation put right, the resurrection body is not a newly created body. As Polkinghorne puts it: “…the new creation arises ex vetere, as the redeemed transformation of the old creation, and not as a second, totally new, creation ex nihilo” (Polkinghorne 2002, p. 50).15 Just as the New Creation will be numerically identical to this world (but changed), so the resurrection bodies are numerically identical to those that were buried (but changed).

A specific (and most important) instance of the general pattern of numerical identity between what needed restoring and what was resorted is Jesus’ own resurrection, which, again, foreshadows the general resurrection. Jesus’ body, the body that died, was resurrected. Note the holes in Jesus’ hands and side, indicating the resurrection body was the body that had been nailed to the cross (Luke 24:40, John 20:25-27). Furthermore, it was because Jesus’ antemorem body was raised that the tomb was empty. As Stephen T. Davis—a dualist—rightly says:

As to the nature of Jesus’ resurrection body, I believe that this much can be affirmed and confidently taught within the Christian community: it was numerically identical with his pre-resurrection body (i.e., it was one and the same body) but not qualitatively identical with it (some of the old properties were still there, but it possessed several new ones as well). (Davis 1993, p. 58)

Since Jesus’ resurrection is the model of resurrection (indeed, the firstfruits of the resurrection), we can infer that our resurrection will be in the bodies that we currently posses.16 Again, Jesus’ 14 Another text that’s gaining rapid traction in the biblical theology literature advancing this sort of view is Middleton (2014). 15 See also Fergusson (2000, p. 3). 16 Baker (2007b) argues that Jesus’ resurrection body could not have been the same as the body that was buried because of qualitative differences. Assuming that there is a solution to the philosophical problem of change over time, that Jesus’ resurrection body was qualitatively different does not bother me. Furthermore, if Jesus’ resurrection

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resurrection body is the model of the general resurrection. If Jesus’ resurrection body is numerically identical to his antemortem body, then so will ours.

Some, such as Baker, claim that I Cor. 15,17 especially verse 50, “clearly suggest[s] that resurrection bodies are not identical to earthly bodies” (2007b, p. 342). This non-identity is purportedly ‘clear’ in Paul’s contrast between the sown body (i.e., that which is laid in the grave), which is a natural/physical body (sōma psychikon) and that which is raised, which is a spiritual body (sōma pneumatikon). Additionally, the resurrected Jesus seems to have a new body, since he can walk through walls. I will deal with these purported counterexamples to my argument in turn.18

We must be careful not to commit the fallacy of anachronism when distinguishing sōma psychikon from sōma pneumatikon. There are several Greek words in the New Testament that, in our present age, we might want to interpret as referring to the ‘non-physical’ part of the human—nous (mind), psyche (soul), and pneuma (spirit). Although dualists certainly can mix and match, they would be wrong to claim that the distinction between nous, psyche, and pneuma (on the one hand) and sarx (flesh) on the other supports dualism (Wright 2011, Cooper 2000).

Regarding 1 Cor. 15 in particular, Wright (2003) comments: “Had Paul wanted in any way to produce the kind of contrast suggested to a modern reader by ‘physical’ and ‘spiritual,’ not only would pneumatikos have been an unhelpful word to have used for the latter idea, but psychikos would have been exactly the wrong word to use for the former” (p. 351). In fact, it is not even clear that these words denote kinds of substance at all, since Greek “adjectives formed with the ending –ikos have ethical or functional meanings rather than referring to the material or substance of which something is composed” (Wright 2003, p. 351, see also Harris 1983, p. 120; 1998, 153). Likewise, Thiselton states: “In the biblical writings the adjective spiritual (Greek, pneumatikos) nearly always denotes the quality of being animated, led, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (Thiselton 2012, p. 112). This gloss on ‘ikos’ adjectives lines up well with the way St. Paul uses pneumatikos elsewhere in the epistle (e.g., I Cor. 2:15). Thus, one would be mistaken to infer from this passage that the spiritual body is a body made of non-physical spirit stuff.19 Instead, it is a body powered by the Spirit. I take the pronouncement of these exegetes as sufficient to establish that, minimally, it is not at all clear that Paul has in mind a numerical distinction between the bodies sown and raised. Instead, he claims that: “…‘this mortal body’ is destined to ‘put on’ immortality (1 Cor. 15:53-54)…” (Harris 1998, p. 165).20

Given the importance of the resurrection, we can ask: why would God go through the trouble of resurrecting the very same body that was on earth? Recall that this is the ‘Resurrection

body was numerically different than the body buried, it is unclear why Jesus’ tomb was empty. I submit that the reason that Jesus’ tomb was empty was that the body that died was numerically identical to the body that was raised. (see Mugg and Turner 2017).17 An anonymous reviewer worries about our ability to use passages, such as 1 Cor. 15, to make points regarding ante-mortem and postmortem bodies. Stump’s recent work on the importance of the interpretation of (non-philosophical) texts is instructive here. She writes: “Interpretations of texts…do not admit of rigorous argument. [However] we can definitively rule some interpretations out, but it is hard to make a compelling argument that only this interpretation is right….Interpretations present, suggest, offer, and invite; unlike philosophical arguments, they cannot attempt to compel” (2010, p. 27). At the very least, since Baker has used this passage to argue that my formulation of the Doctrine of the Resurrection is mistaken, and, as such, it is incumbent upon me to find a principled reason to suggest that her interpretation is mistaken.18 See Mugg and Turner (2017) for additional arguments against Baker’s understanding of the resurrection.19 The point remains if, as is usually maintained by dualists, the soul is simply (i.e. not composed): Paul is not making a metaphysical point about the kind of substance in question. He is making an ethical point.20 Emphasis mine.

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Question.’ As Marilyn McCord Adams, a dualist, puts it “even if bodies have been functional partners in our antemortem careers, why resurrect them if they play no essential role in what we do after death” (2012, p. 264). Importantly, the question is not merely epistemic. It is no good for the Christian to simply say that orthodoxy requires it (it is in both the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds), and therefore a Christian must believe it. As Adams points out, “philosophical theology seeks understanding in the form of theoretical coherence. Prior to proof are philosophical formulation and explanation that show how the data of revelation fit with or follow from other core philosophical and theological commitments” (p. 264). Thus, it is fair to ask: why would God resurrect our antemortem bodies? Note that this question asks not about bodies generally, but our specific bodies.

Most Christian Physicalists have a ready reply: the body one has is necessary for their existence (Corcoran 2006, Merricks 2009, van Inwagen 1978). Therefore, without the body the human person does not exist.21 Thus, the resurrection is necessary for any existence after death. It is our only hope for life after death. Merricks, agreeing that the Doctrine of the Resurrection is a central doctrine of Christianity, says that “if we were not identical with our bodies…the importance of the doctrine that, on the Day of Resurrection, one gets a body identical with the body one had in this life would be difficult to explain” (2009, p. 483-484). Here Merricks seems to be engaged in a kind of inference to the best explanation, with the importance of the resurrection as the explanandum. One need not affirm identity between body and human person to do the explanatory work. Any account of human personhood according to which the body is necessary for the human person (such as Corcoran’s, but not Baker’s, Constitutionalism) will be just as strong on this point as Merricks’s Animalism. Christian dualists have often recognized the need to explain why, on their metaphysics of the human person, the resurrection is so important (see Adams 2012, Davis 1993). I will not weigh in on whether an inference to the best explanation for some form of physicalism succeeds here. That is a distinct issue.22

4. Answering the Resurrection Question or Embracing the Modal Argument: A Dilemma for Christian Modal Argument Advocates

4.1 Horn 1: Embracing the Modal Argument but Unable to Answer the Resurrection QuestionThere are a number of Christian dualists who emphasize the importance of embodiment

simpliciter. For example, Taliaferro (2001) claims that there are a number of goods that a human person has in virtue of being embodied. In fact, Taliaferro claims that we can define embodiment as the exercising of sensory virtues (ability to take in information through the body), the virtue of agency (ability do directly control the body), constitutional virtues (thinking and living are dependent on the body operating), epistemic virtues (being aware of one’s body), structural virtues (the power act and think in a unified, structured way over time” (p. 120)), and affective virtue (feeling that one’s body is one’s own).23 Since it is good to exercise virtues, disembodied souls miss out on these goods. Thus, resurrection, being a means to embodiment, secures the possibility of these goods.

21 Note that Baker does not have this ready reply, as she claims that the body is not necessary for the person’s existence.22 Distinct, but closely related. The Christian Physicalist, in order to make inference to the best explanation, needs to show that there are no deductive arguments for dualism or against their own view, and the Modal Argument is always put forth as a deductive argument. Thus, my present project could be seen as one part of an overall inference to the best explanation.23 Taliaferro claims that embodiment does not require the exercise all these virtues at once.

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While Taliaferro’s virtue account of embodiment brings together normative theory and philosophy of mind, it is less helpful when explaining the importance of the resurrection than some dualists (such as Rickabaugh 2016) have claimed. That embodiment enables the human person to exercise virtues does not explain why God would raise the very body that the human person possessed on earth. At best, it explains why God would put the human person in some body. If Taliaferro is right, all that the dualist can say is that an embodied afterlife is better than a disembodied one. The Christian dualist might, in addition, claim that the eschatological existence is the best kind of existence, and thus it would necessarily be embodied (since embodied existence is superior to disembodied existence, for the reasons Taliaferro suggests).24 However, at best, it can only explain Embodiment (A), leaving Identical Embodiment (A*) unexplained. In order for the virtue account to answer the Resurrection Question, the virtue account must say how the exercising of virtues can only come from a particular soul being embodied in a particular body, or say how it is that the soul exercising those virtues in some particular body is better than that soul exercising those same virtues in some other body. Unfortunately for the dualist, it does not. Thus, Taliaferro’s virtue account of embodiment fails to answer the Resurrection Question.

Notice that this failure is not due to the details of the Taliaferro’s account—the problem is that it focuses on the goods of embodiment simpliciter instead of embodiment in a specific body. For the same reason, any account of the goods of embodiment simpliciter will fail to answer the Resurrection Question. This will be the case for arguments to the effect that embodiment of some kind is necessary for perfect happiness or human flourishing. Consider Plantinga’s attempted answer to the Resurrection Question: “I can flourish only if embodied” (2007, p. 99). Even supposing that is true on a dualist account of the mind, it leaves the Resurrection Question unanswered.25

The same is true for arguments from proper function.26 According to Swinburne, when living on earth, the human person is a composite entity consisting of two parts: the (physical) body and the (non-physical) soul. However, human persons have their bodies contingently while the soul “is the necessary core which must continue if I am to continue” (1997, p. 146). Swinburne draws a distinction between the soul’s existence and functioning. A soul functions whenever it “has conscious episodes” (1997, p. 174). Swinburne offers an analogy: the soul is like a lightbulb and the brain like a light socket. If the light socket is too badly damaged, the lightbulb will not work (though it might still exist). Although Swinburne agrees that it is 24 There are good reasons to doubt that this response works. First, if one affirms (as most Christians dualists do) an intermediate state as a disembodied state, then that state is not paradisiacal. Second, for those opposing universalism (all enter heaven) or annihilationism (those not entering heave simply cease to exist), and who think that God resurrects all human persons’ bodies—either to eternal life or eternal judgment—espousing the virtues or goods of embodiment fails to explain why God would resurrect those destined for eternal judgment. Indeed, if embodiment is a great good, it would make more sense if God did not resurrect their bodies as a form of punishment, leaving them damned to be mere souls. (See Turner 2015). 25 An additional problem with perfect happiness and human flourishing is that, plausibly, God could make the disembodied human person happy and flourish all on his own (without the addition of a body). Interestingly, Adams claims that Bonaventure, who advocated a version of the perfect happiness argument, “admits that even separate from the body, the soul could be (indeed before the resurrection, the souls of the elect are)…happy” (Adams 2012, p. 269). If Adams’ Bonaventure is right, then perfect happiness and human flourishing would not even explain Embodiment, let alone answer the Resurrection Question.26 Historically arguments for the resurrection from proper function and metaphysical completeness were advanced by Bonaventure and Aquinas (see Adams 2012 for an introduction and discussion). Although I focus on Swinburne’s treatment of proper function, everything I say applies equally to Bonaventure and Aquinas, mutatis mutandis.

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physically impossible for my soul to exist apart from some brain functioning, perhaps my brain functioning, it is metaphysically possible that the soul “may still function without being embodied” and can function in some other body (Swinburne 1997, p. 308).

Like Taliaferro and Plantinga, Swinburne might be able to explain Embodiment. If the soul is dependent on a body for its existence or functioning, then it must be embodied to exist or function. Thus, emergent dualism explains Embodiment. However, what kind of dependence obtains between the body (or brain) and the soul? On Swinburne’s account, the brain is only physically necessary for the continued existence and functioning of the soul. Thus, since God can do the physically impossible, God need not resurrect my brain (let alone my body) in order for my soul to exist in the afterlife. Thus, it remains unclear why the afterlife includes a bodily resurrection at all.

Suppose that the dualist claims that proper function metaphysically (instead of merely physically) requires embodiment, thereby tightening the connection between the body and soul. Now at least Embodiment is necessary. While pointing out that existing without a body is an undesirable state (potentially) explains why the soul should be reunited to some body, it does not explain why it must be reunited with the body it once inhabited.27 Again, the Resurrection Question is unanswered if the particular body bound to the soul is incidental. This is the first horn of the dilemma: if the connection between the particular body and particular soul is not tight enough, then the dualist does not have a reply to the Resurrection Question.28

4.2 Horn 2: Answering the Resurrection Question but Rejecting the Modal Argument Other dualist explanations, especially those of composite dualists or dualists urging a

certain version of hylomorphic union might fare better in answering the Resurrection Question. If an account of human persons has it that the human person is not complete without the specific body that one had in antemortem life, then God would have to resurrect the body of that human person in order for that human person to exist whatsoever. If the immaterial soul is merely a proper part of the human person, then the existence of the soul alone is not sufficient for the human person’s existence. As Conn (2008) puts it at one point:

“if the composite theory is true, and you are partly composed of an immaterial soul and partly composed of a living body, then you are no more identical with your soul than you are identical with your left arm. And so even if your soul continues to exist…this is a far cry from saying that you will exist…” (143)29

If composite dualists claim that the body is necessary for the existence of the human person, then they have a response to the Resurrection Question. Interestingly, they have the same answer that Animalists have: God must resurrect the body if that human person is to have any shot at life after death. That is the good news for Christian composite dualists. However, answering the Resurrection Question comes at a price. If my body—this very body I now have—is necessary for me to exist, then the key premise in the Modal Argument is false. It is false that I could exist

27 Notice also that claiming that the Intermediate State is undesirable is to deny the Doctrine of the Intermediate State. While I am happy with this implication, Swinburne seems motivated to maintain it. Thanks to J.T. Turner for pointing this out to me.28 The same holds for Constitutionalists like Baker, who thinks that the person can be constituted by any number of bodies.29 Conn goes on to say that it is possible that we can exist as souls for a time without thereby coming to be souls.

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when my body is destroyed. Perhaps my soul could exist apart from my body or in some other body, but that object (other body-soul composite or disembodied soul) would not be me.

Metaphysical completeness arguments suffer the same fate. On Aquinas’s account, the soul is a substantial form of the body. Because Aquinas, following Aristotle, takes the human person to be a unity, asking questions about the distinction between the soul and the body is like asking for a difference between the wax and the seal: fundamentally, they are a unity. However, for theological reasons, we must ask these philosophically odd questions. Aquinas says that the soul can exist (or subsist) apart from the body. However, the soul needs the body (the very body it was joined to in life) to be metaphysically complete: “since, then sensation is an operation of man, but not proper to him, it is clear that man is not a soul only, but something composed of soul and body” (Q. 75 Art 5). Thus, God would resurrect that body for the sake of metaphysical completeness.30

This view has much going for it. However, accepting it requires giving up on the Modal Argument. I am a human being, but my subsisting disembodied soul would not be a human being—it is metaphysically incomplete. The soul of a human person is not the human person. What I am is a human person. Thus, for me to exist, my body must exist. But if this is the case, 9 in Swinburne’s argument is false: I cannot outlive this body, even if my soul can. Likewise, if my soul were joined to some other body (whether another human body or some other animal), that new thing would not be me. Thus, Aquinas’s account, as I have interpreted him, can answer the Resurrection Question, but cannot make use of the Modal Argument.

Now, the hylomorphic dualism might object that I have mischaracterized the nature of the human body. Van Dyke has outlined how immanent causation explains how the resurrection body could be numerically identical to the antemortem body for the hylomorphist. In life, the body remains the same through changes in its parts because that body is informed by the same rational soul. Indeed, the body just is the matter informed by the rational soul. The resurrection body is informed by the antemortem soul, and therefore it is identical to the antemortem body. “The rejoining of David’s soul with matter results in the recreating of David’s own body, since David’s body just is the physical organism resulting from the union of his substantial form with matter” (Van Dyke 2007, p. 390). Thus, assuming that Embodiment is valuable and that the resurrection life is the best life, any matter informed by the soul will be numerically identical with the antemortem body. Assuming that at least some of the above dualist arguments succeed in demonstrating that Embodiment simpliciter is valuable, the hylomorphic dualist succeeds in explaining Identical Embodiment.

Suppose this hylomorphic response succeeds in explaining how the resurrection body is identical to the antemortem body: any body informed by the same soul is the same body. In that case, BR is numerically identical to B, since both are informed by Plantinga’s soul. Indeed, if I am reembodied in anything whatsoever, that thing will be numerically identical to my present body. Thus, it is not possible that I should have some body other than the one that I have. Thus, hylomorphism cannot endorse the Modal Argument. One might protest here that the two bodies are not really the same—they just happen to be informed by the same soul, and so BR is not identical to B. However, if the hylomorphist takes this line, she must give up the above response to the resurrection question (along with her solution to how it is that God could resurrect the very 30 My characterization of Aquinas is controversial. This is not the place determine whether Aquinas’s hylomorphic union account is physicalist or dualist. What is important is that Aquinas’s account, like any Christian account of the human person, will need to pick a horn. If hylomorphic union does allow for the body-swapping, disembodied human persons existing, or Kafka-life metamorphoses, then hylomorphic union falls prey to the first horn of the dilemma.

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same body). Maintain the Modal Argument while embracing this hylomorphic answer to the resurrection question requires two claim: BR is not identical to B (which needed for the Modal Argument), but BR is identical to B (since BR and B are informed by the same soul). The hylomorphist cannot have it both ways.

Although in the previous section I argued that Swinburne’s emergent dualism fails to answer the Resurrection Question, there are emergent dualisms that could. Everything hinges on what the dependence relation resulting from the emergence really amounts to. Here I will consider Hasker’s (1999) emergent dualism. According to Hasker (1999), the self is emergent from the body and brain in two senses: first, in that the mind is “endowed with novel causal powers” (p. 188) “whose operations [are] described by emergent laws” (p. 174). Second, these novel causal powers cannot be explained by the causal interaction of the brain or body, since the self “possess libertarian free will” (p. 188). Hasker “implicitly affirm[s] that the human mind is produced by the human brain and is not a separate element ‘added to’ the brain from outside” (p. 189, emphasis his). The analogy he uses is that just as a magnetic field emerges from a magnet, so “the organization and functioning of the nervous system bring into existence the ‘field of consciousness’” (p. 191).

Turning to the possibility of survival after death, Hasker says that emergent dualism seems to suggest there is not life after death. Consider his magnetic analogy: “stop the generator, destroy the magnet, and the field disappears” (p. 232). Likewise, when the nervous system stops functioning, the self disappears. Again, the self is not a “separate element ‘added to’ the brain from the outside” (p. 189). So God would need to resurrect my body (or at least my nervous system) if I were to survive death. If we read Hasker’s version of emergent dualism with this kind of strong dependence, he has a good answer to the Resurrection Question. However, he must give up on the Modal Argument. If my nervous system is necessary for my self, then I could not exist in some body that did not have my nervous system. This leaves potential cases in which my nervous system (say, my brain and spinal cord) are transferred into a new body. However, it is not clear whether this would be a genuinely new body. Giving up on the Modal Argument should not be a worry for Hasker. Speaking of Swinburne’s version of the Modal Arguments for dualism, Hasker claims that it is “at best epistemically circular, and it contributes nothing to the rational acceptability of dualism for anyone” (1999, p. 116, see also 1998), and Hasker seems only slightly more impressed with Taliaferro’s Modal Argument, which is a perfectly general form of the Modal Argument whose key premise is that it is possible for me to exist without my body and vice-versa.31

Although Hasker places little stock in the Modal Argument, when considering life after death, he says that there is a “logical possibility for the field to continue without its supporting magnet” (1999, p. 232). He suggests that after the initial emergence of the self from the nervous system, the self could (logical possibility) continue to exist without the nervous system. One might worry here that Hasker is giving up advantages concerning mind-brain interaction and self-body pairing by making this move. However, assuming that causality involves only nomological or metaphysical modality and that these are distinct in extension from logical modality, there is no problem: the logically possible need not be metaphysically (nor nomologically) actual.32 The nomologically impossible becoming actual would require a miracle, but then again life after death is a miracle according to the Doctrine of the Resurrection. 31 Mutandis mantis for accounts according to which the individual emerges from the body or organism. These accounts will be able to answer the Resurrection Question, but must let go of the Modal Argument. (See esp. Jacobs and O’Connor 2010 and O’Connor and Jacobs 2003). However, I most emergentists will happily welcome undercutting the Modal Argument.

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However, if the nervous system is not (logically) necessary for the self, then it is unclear why God would go through the trouble of resurrecting it. Hasker’s emergent dualism ends up back on the other horn of the dilemma.

4.3 Between the Horns?Some Christian dualists have seen the problem I have been outlining: taking the Doctrine

of the Resurrection seriously seems to undercut one of the motivations for their dualist accounts. Conn nicely recognizes this tension in composite dualism: “we cannot have it both ways: we cannot say both (a) that we are the product of this union [of soul and body], and (b) that it is possible for us to survive the dissolution of this union” (p. 143).33 Faced with the dilemma, Conn opts out of the claim that we are the product the union of the soul and the body (though he does not put it this way). He claims that since it is “possible for us to lose all of our material parts without ceasing to exist…it is conceivable that we could exist for a time in the absence of our bodies” (p. 145). If Conn is right, then the intuitions at play in the Modal Argument are right. Indeed, not only can I exist independently of this body, I can exist disembodied. However, if on composite dualism it is possible that a human person can exist for a time without a body (or in some completely different body), then composite dualism falls back onto the first horn of the dilemma: the Resurrection Question goes unanswered.

Some dualists, such as Swinburne, might find a way between these two horns by relying on the existence/function distinction. Perhaps the soul could exist without a body, but would not function. That is, the soul would exist but not be conscious.34 Swinburne could revise his account to deny the metaphysical possibility of the soul’s functioning in a disembodied state: his soul would be like a lightbulb without a light socket. Such an account explains Embodiment, since the soul needs a body to properly function. Still, this reply leaves the Resurrection Question unanswered. Thus, the account falls on the first horn. Dualists could further alter their account to say that the soul could only function in one specific body—namely their antemortem body—thus explaining why God would have to resurrect that body in order for the soul to function. On this suggestion, 3, 5, and 7 are not false. At least, not obviously so. I could exist in a disembodied state, I would just not be conscious—I would have no thoughts, feelings, etc.35 To ensure that a particular body is necessary for the functioning of the soul, the same would have to be true of my existing in a different human body: my soul could exist in that body, but I would not be conscious.

There is no inconsistency in endorsing the Modal Argument on such an account. However, this move completely undercuts the intuitive force of the Modal Argument. It is intuitive that I might exist without any body at all because it seems I can imagine a disembodied soul looking down at my dead body. But if the dualist answers the Resurrection Question by saying that the soul can only function when joined with its body, then my intuitions are wrong

32 I do not mean to suggest that dividing nomological, metaphysical, and logical modalities this way is uncontroversial. I am merely trying to read Hasker as charitably as possible. If necessarianism about the laws of nature is true, then Hasker’s move does not work. On his account it would not be logically possible for the self to exist without the nervous system.33 I take the word ‘product’ in this word to be mereological rather than generative. 34 Some dualists, such as Goetz and Taliaferro (2011, p. 214) explicitly claim, contra Descartes, that it is possible for the soul to exist without being conscious. For the sake of argument, I will assume that existence does not imply function.35 I have in mind what Armstrong (1981) called ‘minimal consciousness’, according to which if there are thoughts occurring in the mind, the subject is minimally conscious.

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here. If I were disembodied, or embodied in some other body, then I would not be conscious. I would not have thoughts. Although 3, 5, and 7 would not be false, the intuition supporting their truth is misguided, and it becomes unclear what evidence we have for them. Thus, saying that the soul exists but does not function when disjoined from it body falls onto a slightly weakened version of the second horn of the dilemma.36

Two final possibilities of escape from this dilemma present themselves. First, explanations from soteriology or divine justice, which both Bonaventure and Aquinas offer. Second, arguments from satisfaction of appetites or perfect happiness. Consider an argument from divine justice. Adams paraphrases Bonaventure:

Justice demands that rewards and punishments go to the very same agent who acted or refrained from acting. But what we are ante mortem is embodied agents. Soul and body are partners—the body, a united instrument of the soul—in action and omission. Therefore, they should be partners in rewards or punishments deserved thereby. (Adams 2012, p. 268)

Divine justice requires that God judges the agent who acted rightly or wrongly. Since we are (at least antemortem) embodied agents (or form/matter unions, as Aquinas puts it), what must be punished or rewarded is that very body that committed the action combined with that very soul that committed the action. Thus, God must resurrect the antemortem body that was partly constitutive of the human person that committed the act, not for metaphysical reasons, but for reasons of divine justice.

This is an adequate response to the Resurrection Question. However, notice that to answer the Resurrection Question, this response needs it to be the case that the body is necessary for the human person’s guilt or merit. The reason that the antemortem body is important when it comes to justice is because that very body was (partly) constitutive of the agent. If God must resurrect the antemortem body and combine it with the soul in order to punish the agent who committed acts while on earth, then the ante mortem body is necessary for the agent’s existence. It might be true that the soul is still be an agent without its antemortem body (or any other body for that matter), but, assuming the above explanation answers the Resurrection Question, my soul without my body would not be me. Thus, divine justice answers to the Resurrection Question succeed only if the antemortem body is necessary for the human person’s existence. If one wants to remain a dualist here, then one must be a composite dualist. But if one’s antemortem body is necessary for one’s existence, then the Modal Argument is unsound.

The final response to the Resurrection Question, satisfaction of appetites, says that the soul desires to be embodied. If the desire in question is merely to be embodied, then the explanation falls onto the first horn of the dilemma, since it cannot explain why God would resurrect the antemortem body. What is needed is the stronger claim that the soul desires its antemortem body, and this is just what some dualists (historically Bonaventure and Aquinas) have claimed. However, there is something odd in thinking that there is a soul in paradise that is not fully satisfied. Adams summarizes a plausible reading of Scotus’s objection to this response to the Resurrection Question:

Scotus may intend that since God is love above all and for God’s own sake, everything and anything else will be loved for God’s sake, so that God unites the other desires as their end. When the end is reached, I will not care about the subordinate desire any more. If so, then surely union

36 Swinburne (in conversation) resolves the tension by denying Identical Embodiment, claiming that no particular body is metaphysically necessary for the existence or functioning of the soul. I have (§3) argued that he is wrong in doing so.

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with God [as a disembodied soul] could get me to give up on any conscious deliberative desire my soul had for my body as well. (Adams 2012, p. 285)

As Turner (2015) rightly points out (echoing Luther), it is difficult to reconcile the very idea of a paradisiacal state before the resurrection with the the Doctrine of the Resurrection: why would resurrection matter if you already have access to God himself? Indeed, Scotus and Bonaventure admit that being present before God could cause a soul to give up its desire for its body (Adams 2012, p. 286).37

5. The Doctrine of the Intermediary StateMany Christian dualists, such as Cooper (2000) and Harris (1983), have claimed that the

dead are “living together with Christ in an intermediate state” (Cooper 2000, p. 140). This is a state before the resurrection, and so, Cooper and Harris reason, it is a time when the dead exist without bodies. Thus, there will be a time at which a human person is disembodied, and so it is possible that a human person be disembodied, and so 9 is true.38 Thus, while my focus in this paper is on a feature of the Doctrine of the Resurrection, specifically Identical Embodiment, I must address the Doctrine of the Intermediate State as well.

Turner (2015) helpfully puts the doctrine as two claims:

D. “There is a state of existence following human biological death in which a believing human (e.g. Jones) exists without her body (i.e., as a substantial soul/mind)” (p. 406).

E. “There is a state of existence following a human’s biological death that is paradisiacal in quality” (p. 407).39

I agree that E is true: at the eschaton, which is after biological death, there will be a state of existence that is paradisiacal. However, D is false. Turner (2015), following Martin Luther and William Tyndale, argues that if there were a paradisiacal intermediary state, then the resurrection would be superfluous. Turner quotes Luther on this point: “that would be a silly soul if it were in heaven and desired its body” (Luther 1967, p. 446). Turner, following Tyndale, points to St. Paul’s argument in 1 Cor. 15:12-19. Paul’s argument hinges on the claim that the resurrection is not superfluous, and so orthodox Christians ought to believe that the resurrection is not superfluous. Thus, there is not a paradisiacal intermediary state. Either D or E must go.40

In the previous section, I argued that an account of human persons explaining the importance of the resurrection must give up 3, 5, and 9. A similar worry arises here. If one exists as a happy disembodied soul after death, why is the resurrection so important? Thus, the orthodox Christian faces a dilemma: either fail to explain why God would resurrect the antemortem body, or reject the Doctrine of the Intermediate State. Given my arguments in the

37 Turner’s argument hinges on a certain reading of bo. Paul’s claim that if Christ is not raised then Christ’s followers are to be pitied makes no sense if the souls of Christ’s followers are enjoying bliss without their bodies, and that would be true even if resurrection added goods to those human persons in paradise. 38 Interestingly, both Baker and Corcoran both endorse the Doctrine of the Intermediate State as well, though only Baker uses it to argue for her position (Corcoran merely argues that his view is compatible with it).39 Turner is clear that this understanding of the Doctrine of the Intermediate State is compatible with the Catholic (and growing Protestant) Doctrine of Purgatory, according to which some souls are moved to paradise immediately while others endure Purgatory before entering a paradisiacal state prior to the resurrection. 40 See Turner (2015) for the full argument and extended discussion with Cooper and Harris’s arguments

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previous section, I urge that Christians give up D. 41 However, one might think that scripture clearly teaches D. While I do not have the space to fully explore this, I will consider what I take to be the most compelling scriptural evidence for disembodied souls existing between death and resurrection, arguing that the case is not as strong as often assumed.

Note that the only explicit reference to souls existing in heaven is found in Revelation 6:9-11, in which the souls of the martyrs cry out for vengeance and are given white robes. It would be odd to take the reference to souls as supporting the existence of disembodied human persons, even assuming that the semantic arguments against taking ‘soul’ (psyche) in the NT as an immaterial substance, which I have already outlined above, do not succeed. First, the overall passage (the breaking of the seals) should clearly be understood metaphorical, and it is odd to switch to a literal reading midstream. Second, the souls are given white robes. If the soul is a non-physical thing, then it is odd to think that it can be clothed with something as physical as white robes. One might protest that the robes are symbolic. However, it seems ad hoc to interpret ‘souls under the alter’ as non-physical substances piled on top of each other but not the robes. The best approach is to interpret the whole sequence non-literally.

Several confessions of faith cite Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross (“today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23: 39-43)) as evidence for D. If we are taking Jesus’ words literally, a proper understanding of his utterance will require a re-evaluation of the nature of time and eternity. Notice that Jesus’ words come in response to the thief’s request for Jesus to remember him when Jesus “comes into his kingdom” (Luke 23: 38). However, Jesus did not come into his kingdom on the day that he died. Jesus comes into his kingdom either at his resurrection or the parousia, but certainly not at his death. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus says to his followers that he is going to prepare a place for them (John 14:3). If the thief was to be with Jesus on Good Friday, then paradise must have existed on Good Friday, but if the paradise already existed, why did Jesus need to ascend to heaven to prepare it? Thus, Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross do not, in fact, support D.

Finally, there are clear prohibitions in Old Testament Law forbidding consulting the dead (e.g. Lev. 19:31, 20:6, Deut. 18:11), and in at least one case a dead individual was consulted (1 Sam. 28). One might think that the dead must exist in some disembodied form in which they could be consulted, but should not be. Corcoran, in considering the witch of Endor passage, rightly points out that “Samuel is experienced as some sort of bodily being. He is seen, after all. In other words, even if Scripture teaches an intermediate state of consciousness existence (which I believe it does), it does not imply that the state is a disembodied state” (p. 140). I find the consultation of the dead mysterious, but if the body is necessary for the person’s existence, it is perfectly coherent to say that the medium engaged in quasi-resurrection, albeit without the ‘putting to rights’ part. This may sound strange, but dualist endorsing the Doctrine of the Intermediary State must say strange things concerning passages about consulting the dead as well. If the disembodied soul is enjoying life in paradise, how is it that activity by someone on earth can pull them out of it?

6. ConclusionThe Modal Argument, requires that it is possible for me to exist in a body other than the

one I currently posses, or to exist without any body whatsoever. However, Christian eschatology

41 One might worry that denying D commits me to ‘soul sleep’ theory, according to which human persons are not conscious between death and resurrection. I do not think that it does, and a re-evaluation of time and eternity is, I suspect, the way to both deny D and ‘soul sleep’ theory. See Turner, under review for a solution to this effect.

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sees it as crucial that I will exist with the body I presently possess. A plausible explanation is that this very body is necessary for my existence. Notice that there are a number of views of human persons that are compatible with this view. Indeed, I have argued that a certain kind of composite dualism is compatible with it. I have argued that alternative answers to the Resurrection Question either fail, or work only on the condition that the body is necessary for the human person. Answering the Resurrection Question requires giving up on the Modal Argument.

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