Cover

Half-title

Series-title

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Figures

Preface

1 Do Christians need souls? Theological and biblical perspectives on human nature

1. Prospect and problems

2. History's ambiguous message

2.1 Contradictions in historical criticism

2.2 So where do we stand?

3. Ancient philosophy and early Christian thought

3.1 Plato and Aristotle

3.2 Early Christian responses

3.3 Medieval and Reformation developments

4. So what does the Bible say?

4.1 Old Testament scholarship

4.2 Conflicting accounts of the New Testament

4.3 My thesis

5. Physicalism and theology

5.1 Doctrine of God

5.2 Christology and Trinity

5.3 Salvation and history

6. Questioning the spiritual quest

6.1 Augustinian inwardness

6.2 Contemporary revisions

7. Retrospect

2. What does science say about human nature? Physics, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience

1. Prospect

2. The atomist revolution in physics

2.1 The medieval world-picture

2.2 The Copernican challenge

3. The Darwinian revolution

3.1 Our embarrassing relatives

3.2 Theological roots of social Darwinism

4. Neuroscience and the soul

4.1 Biology and the life principle

4.2 Neuroscience and the animal soul

4.3 Investigating the rational soul

5. Retrospect and prospect

3 Did my neurons make me do it? Reductionism, morality, and the problem of free will

1. Prospect

2. What’s wrong with reductionism?

2.1 The pervasive influence of pictures

2.2 Defending downward causation

2.3 Further complications

3. The emergence of self-direction

3.1 Fixed patterns of complex activity

3.2 Mammalian flexibility

4. Human self-determination and responsibility

4.1 Animal precursors

4.2 Language and the prerequisites for morality

4.3 Language and self-transcendence

4.4 An illustration

5. But is this free will?

5.1 A confusion of definitions

5.2 A critique of the terms of debate

6. Retrospect

4. What are the philosophical challenges to physicalism? Human distinctiveness, divine action, and personal identity

1. Prospect

2. The epistemological issue

2.1 On the unreliability of philosophical intuitions

2.2 Physicalism as a scientific research program

3. Human distinctiveness

3.1 Morality versus animal altruism

3.2 Physicalism and religious experience

4. Divine action in the natural world

4.1 Why this should not be a problem

4.2 The modern challenge

4.3 Current proposals

5. Personal identity

5.1 Philosophical distinctions

5.2 Theological considerations

5.3 Bodily identity

5.4 What we know we cannot know

6. Conclusion

Index