Physicalism and the Bible

In her Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (Cambridge, 2006), Nancey Murphy argues for a non-reductionist version of physicalism on the question of the “body-soul” problem: “This is the view that humans are composed of only one ‘part,’ a physical body.”

She spends a bit over six pages near the beginning of the book reviewing the biblical evidence. She lists a number of passages from the OT that indicate the “soul” (NEPHESH) can be “torn or stabbed” and even “thrown into pits” (Ps 7:1-2; 22:20; 35:7), she turns to the debate over dualism and monism among NT scholars in order to “show the difficulty in determining what a New Testament author has in mind on this particular issue.” She concludes that “the New Testament authors are not intending to teach anything about humans’ metaphysical composition. If they were, surely they could have done so much more clearly!”

A page later, she states that “there is no such thing as the biblical view of human nature insofar as we are interested in a partitive account .” She borrows “partitive” from Dunn, who claims that Greeks thought of the “human being as made up of distinct parts” while “Hebraic thought saw the human being more as a whole person existing on different dimensions” – a view he describes as an “aspective” anthropology.

I’m not interested at this point in Murphy’s conclusions so much as her mode of argument. It seems to be this: She lays out alternative theories of nature – phyicalism, dualism, and trichotomism; then she examines the Bible (for all of six pages!) to determine if the Bible endorses any of them. She finds it doesn’t. Therefore, she concludes that the Bible offers no theory of human nature, or at least no partitive one. Having found that establishing a biblical anthropology is “difficult,” she goes on to argue for her chosen anthropology – physicalism – on extra-biblical grounds. Her subsequent chapters examine science’s contribution to our understanding of human nature, the problem of neurological reductionism, and the philosophical issues raised by physicalism.

At least two problems here: One, on what ground does she demand that the Bible offer a clear anthropology? What counts as a “clear” endorsement of an anthropological position?

Two, isn’t it possible that the Bible presents an anthropology that doesn’t fit neatly into any of Murphy’s theoretical options? On the face of things, this seems to be the case, since the Bible links various mental and emotional phenomena to particular bodily organs – thoughts of the heart, the “reins” as the seat of emotions, “wombliness” is the etymology of the Heb for “compassion,” and so on. This biblical usage doesn’t fit a dualist or trichotomist theory (since the Bible speaks of more than two or three “parts” – if we want to call them “parts”). But it doesn’t exactly endorse the findings of neuroscience either (which doesn’t locate emotions in the kidneys). Murphy throws up her hands after a few pages of biblical analysis and moves on to other sources.

Murphy argues that Christians are “free to choose among several options.” Yet, she does say the Bible gives boundaries: Radical dualsim is out, and so is any reductive physicalism “that denies human ability to be in relationship with God.” And, as it turns out, she offers a pretty good beginning sketch of a biblical anthropology: “What the New Testament authors do attest is, first, that humans are psychophysical unities; second, that Christian hope for eternal life is staked on bodily resurrection rather than an immortal soul; and, third, that humans are to be understood in terms of their relationships – relationships to the community of believers and especially to God.”