Posted December 7, 2023, Scott Rae interviews J. P. about his latest book (co-authored with Brandon Rickabaugh), The Substance of Consciousness. 

Key topics discussed: the nature of human personhood, the existence of the soul, and the philosophical implications of these topics in contemporary culture.

What you will learn:

• How Substance Dualism can be defined: (0:48-6:11). J.P. defines substance dualism as the idea that human beings are immaterial souls that inhabit bodies. He notes that children often naturally adopt this view, and that the soul is distinct from the physical brain.
• How neuroscience relates to the soul: (9:43-13:35). J. P. explains that neuroscience observations about the brain can also be consistent with a dualist view. He uses the analogy of a driver in a car: if the car (brain) is damaged, the driver (soul) cannot function properly, but that does not mean the driver is the car.
• Naturalism and Its Failures: (14:18-20:05). J. P. discusses how philosophical naturalism fails to account for logical truths, mathematical certainty, and the existence of consciousness and free will.
• Personal Identity and Moral Responsibility: (20:09-23:36). Concepts of criminal justice and personal accountability, J. P. shows, rely on the idea that we remain the same person through time, even as our physical cells change. Without a soul, this continuity would be impossible to maintain.
• Free Will: (23:37-27:52). J.P. posits that free will is incompatible with a purely physical, deterministic worldview, as physical objects must obey the laws of chemistry and physics.
• Mental Health Applications: (28:09-32:41). Drawing on his own experience with anxiety and depression, J. P. highlights how understanding the soul’s capacity for choice, meaning, and thought—as seen in the work of neuroscientist Jeffrey Schwartz—can lead to effective mental health strategies that involve rewiring the brain.
• AI and Transhumanism: (33:00-41:57). J. P. addresses modern technology, arguing that computers are not conscious and cannot possess empathy, regardless of their processing power. He warns against transhumanism, emphasizing that human dignity is rooted in being made in God's image, not merely in cognitive performance.
• Communicating the Gospel: (42:00-43:56). J. P. shows that knowing and believing that souls exist is essential for the Christian message of salvation and life after death. For a purely physical being would be annihilated at death.

I have been fighting cancer for over ten years. In that time, I have had 21 surgeries.  But beginning last May 2024, my fight intensified against bladder cancer and cheek/sinus cancer that is pervasive throughout my right cheek and cheekbones. Regarding the latter, surgery was no longer an option and radiation was most likely my last chance.  It is a terminal form of cancer.  

Up until around August 20, I had been fervently praying that God would save my life because I still have the ability to meet my family’s needs, and I didn’t want to leave with those needs still burdening them.  And I prayed that I would not suffer in the process ahead of me.  But something happened to me around August 20 that changed my perspective.  Here’s what happened. One night while I was praying in bed, it dawned on me that the primary and most important value in my life was getting well and avoiding more suffering. That was my preoccupation and stood in the background of all the thoughts and feeling I would have throughout the day.

Then something from Dallas' book entered my mind (see The Scandal of the Kingdom: How the Parables of Jesus Revolutionize Life with God).  As Jesus’ parables make clear, the thing that pleases God most is for us to be preoccupied with - and to value most - becoming a disciple of Jesus and learning to live according to His Kingdom’s perspectives and values.  Internalizing these two presuppose and further enhance a way of seeing life that centers on loving God and giving my life away to others for His Kingdom, all the while knowing that this perspective would bring hardship and so forth.  I had always wanted these values to define me, but I had lost that perspective and replaced it with the core values of getting well and not suffering.

Now let me be clear. It is commonsense and perfectly good to want to get well from sickness and to avoid suffering. These are values I still embrace. But they are not to be my preoccupation, my defining life-principles, what my life is about. That night and since then, I have done different things to live out and grow in this discipleship/Kingdom perspective. This pivot has made all the difference in my attitude towards being sick, facing death, and suffering.

Learn more about the book by visiting here.

There is much confusion today about what we fundamentally are.

This confusion leads to further confusion about how we flourish in our personal and professional lives.

Are we ultimately a soul?

Are we ultimately a body?

Are we ultimately some combination of the two?

Have We Lost Our Minds? - by my good friend and co-podcaster, Stan Wallace - offers helpful answers to these questions and points the way forward. 

Exclusively now on the Wipf and Stock website, save 40% using code CONF40.

Preview the book and purchase copies today for you and others!

Forgive me for the length of this post, but I wanted to give you a thorough understanding of my journey for the last two months. I hope this will allow you to know me better and to be encouraged by things the living God has done.

How do we KNOW an event was a miracle and not a coincidence? (Skip this if it is too long.)

In the world, there are two kinds of causes that produce effects: impersonal physical causes and rational free agents who do something for a purpose. If a flash of lightening causes a tree to split, the cause is impersonal. If Hope sets the dinner table for guests, the cause of the table setting was a personal rational agent. The hard sciences focus on impersonal causes and the soft sciences (psychology, archeology, anthropology, forensic science) and jury trials focus on personal agent-causes.

Science has developed a clear, successful way to determine when it is legitimate to conclude that some phenomenon is the result of a purposive, intelligent act by an agent and when such a conclusion is unwarranted.  For example, insurance employees, police, and forensic scientists must determine whether a death was accidental (no intelligent cause) or brought about intentionally (done on purpose by an intelligent agent, e.g., murder).

Whenever two factors are present, people are rationally obligated to draw the conclusion that the event was brought about intentionally for a purpose by an intelligent agent (whether a human or God):  (1)  The event was a very unlikely one; it had a small probability of happening; and (2)  The event is capable of independent characterization (capable of being identified as a special occurrence beside the simple fact that it did, in fact, happen).  There is some independent description of the event itself that implies that if an event satisfies that description, then the event is a special one.

To illustrate, consider a game of bridge in which four people receive a hand of thirteen cards each.  There is a $500 prize for the winner. To simplify matters, let’s focus on just two of the four people—random person A and the dealer, person B. Let one hand dealt to person A be a random set of cards—call it hand A—and the other (B) be a perfect bridge hand dealt to the dealer himself on the very first deal (person B).  Now if that happened, we would immediately infer that while A was not dealt intentionally, the perfect bridge hand was and, in fact, represents a case of cheating on the part of the dealer.  What justifies our suspicion?

First, since hand A and the perfect bridge hand have the same number of cards (13), each is equally improbable.  So, the small probability of an event is not sufficient by itself to raise suspicions that the event (person A getting a random set of cards) came about by the intentional action of an agent. Still, small probability is necessary to be confident that the result (the dealer getting a winner on the first deal) was done on purpose.

To see this, suppose that A and B were the only two players. In their rather odd game, each person is dealt three cards and the winner must have at least two black cards out of the three dealt to him.  A gets two red cards and one black card.  The dealer—B—gets a winning hand with two black cards and one red one.  If this happened, no one would suspect B of rigging the deck intentionally to win the first deal. Why?  Because getting two black cards and one red card does not have a small probability of occurring. In fact, it is fairly likely and, thus, it can easily be explained by pure chance.

As we have seen, by itself, the small probability of the dealer in the bridge game getting a perfect hand is not enough to charge him with cheating.  Highly unlikely coincidences happen all the time. Something else is needed to infer intentional agency (including a divine one), and the second criterion makes this clear:  The perfect bridge hand can be described as special independently of the fact that it happened to be the hand the dealer got, but this is not so for hand A.  Hand A can be described as “some improbable hand or other that someone (e.g., person A) happens to get.”  Now that specification applies to all hands whatever and does not mark out as special any particular hand that occurs.  So understood, A is no more special than any other random deal.

But this is not so for the perfect bridge hand.  This hand can be characterized as a special sort of combination of cards by the rules of bridge, quite independently of the fact that it is the hand that the dealer received.  It is the combination small probability (this particular arrangement of cards was quite unlikely to have occurred), and independent “specialness” (according to the rules, this is a pretty special hand for the dealer to receive, and we know that independently of the fact that it happened to be the hand the dealer got) that justifies us in accusing the dealer of cheating. Small probability + independent specialness = done on purpose by an intelligent agent.

The same principle applies to miracles. If one is praying for a very specific thing to happen even though if God does not act, it is very unlikely to happen on its own, then if the prayed for event happens, you can be sure it was brought about by a Personal Rational Agent (God) as an answer to prayer. With this in mind, let me share seven miracles (specific answers to prayer) I have seen in two months. They all conform to the scientific principle: small probability + independent specialness = done on purpose by an intelligent agent (in these cases, God). 

Divine leading and provision for Radiation treatment

I have had 7 surgeries on my right cheek, 5 of which were done at UCI by Dr. Tao in the last 3 weeks.) Two months ago, he told me the surgeries were no longer working (for each surgery, the cancer was coming back more quickly) and I needed another plan. I had 2 problems I needed to solve. First, I needed God’s direction among 3 options going forward: chemo, radiation, and radical surgery. Second, UCI doctors are in such high demand that new appointments can take up to 6-8 weeks to secure and I needed to start treatment asap. I prayed specifically for God to solve both. Two weeks later, I was at UCI for a urology appointment, I had some time before the appointment, so since I now have a PPO, I decided to go to the radiation dept. and schedule an appointment. The problem was that while the department has 25 radiation oncologists, only 2 specialize in head, facial, and throat cancers. Plus, as a new patient, the wait time for an appointment might be quite long. I approached the receptionist, and she told me that even though I had a PPO, I have to get clearance from the department to get an appointment. I tried to persuade her otherwise, but she would not budge. So, she gave me the number of their department center that handles these matters, I talked to an agent who would not budge either. I asked to speak to his supervisor. When I talked to her, she said she would meet me in the lobby to discuss things in person (most call centers are off campus and somewhere is LA). She wouldn’t budge until I have her a packet of info on me I had prepared. She said she would take it back to the nurses’ center and look at it. In 15 minutes, she came back and said that they only had 2 doctors who treated my need, one of them was there (these guys usually go twice a week to different UCI centers around LA), miraculously, at that moment he actually had a meeting slot open, and he would see me right then. Long story short—he took me on as a patient and I am now 1/4^th of the way through my 2-a-day treatments!! Incredible. Guidance and provision. (Two other UCI doctors in other departments confirmed that radiation was the way to go.)

Keytruda A year ago I went in for immunotherapy infusions once every three weeks for six months at a non-UCI infusion center under the recommendation of my oncologist for 10 years. It did not work. However, Dr. Charu (without me knowing it) scheduled me to do 17 infusions (one every three weeks) with a drug (Keytruda) she thought might be better for me.  Well, guess what. It treats 10 different cancers and is the best treatment for cheek cancer that cannot be surgically addressed! But there is more. It is also the second line of defense after BCG treatments (which I get every 3-6 months) for bladder cancer!! And you can be on both at the same time. Unknown to Dr. Charu, Keytruda was exactly the infusion drug I needed to address both cancers!!

The following are 4 answers to prayer that happened in my hospitalization at UCI Friday-Monday morning (June 28-July 1).

Private Room

I checked into the hospital Friday morning and got in quickly (after me, a hoard of people came to the hospital, and they announced that it would take 2 hours or so to check people in!). They literally took me to a room in the basement that looked like a second world hospital (It was horrible). It was so small, that my bed barely fit inside and there was room for only 2 people to be in the room working on me (establishing an IV line, etc.) After 2 hours I was taken to floor 2. I had to share a room with an older couple. There was little privacy, we shared a bathroom, and they had their TV on late into the night (making going to sleep hard). And the bed was an older one I could barely get out of (I had 4 lines coming into me with bags of solution on a pole) to attempt a bowel movement (I was constipated until Monday). It was not a good situation. Unknown to me, Hope and my daughters prayed that God would move me into a private room with a better bed. Mid-morning the next day (Saturday) a nurse came in and announced I was being moved to a private room on the 6^th floor. It was so, so nice and the atmosphere was completely different and uplifting. And get this: They had just received some new beds a few days ago and I got one that was so comfortable that I slept well and could get in and out of bed easily!

Surgery at 1pm

Surgery was scheduled for Sunday, and my surgeon assumed that since it was Sunday, there would be no problem with the OR being available. A fairly early surgery might allow me to be released early Monday and also go to my radiation appointment (which I could not miss) at 9am Monday. Early Sunday morning, one of the doctors visited me and said that unfortunately, they had underestimated the demand for the OR and my surgery was scheduled for 6pm. I was heartbroken and Hope and I prayed that God would open up an earlier time so I could be released Monday morning and go to my radiation appointment. At 1:15pm, a nurse entered my room and said “Get yourself ready. All the surgical team in in the OR and you are going in for surgery right now!” I was whisked into the OR and had surgery immediately!

Miracle in Surgery

On Friday night, a urologist visited my room and told me they knew what was causing the bleeding: In 2017, I had radiation on my prostate area that also hit my bladder and (he used a technical name) I had such and such. The radiation had affected my bladder and now (probably due to earlier bladder treatments) it was causing the bleeding. He said he had to be honest: This syndrome cannot be solved by surgery since my bleeding was highly likely to be from the entire inner wall of my bladder. He said that we might get lucky and find a few lesions that are the source of the bleeding, they could cauterize them, and solve the problem, But I needed to prepare myself for them not being able to stop the bleeding (they could try strong anti-clot meds with side effects), and I would likely go home and wear the catheter (I had already worn it with bright and dark red blood in my urine for 3 weeks) for maybe another month.  In the recovery room after I awakened, the doctor said, “Well, we got lucky. There were 3 lesions causing all the bleeding, they were cauterized, and the problem was solved. No more blood and only clear, normal urine!!

Monday morning radiation appointment

There was still the Monday 9am radiation appointment I needed. At 6:30am, the nurse told me I was being released sometime that morning but I most likely would miss my appointment. The weekend administration and nursing staff were being replaced by the weekly folks, they would need to be briefed on all the patients, and a urologist would need to be contacted to approve my release (and the urologists were all most likely in surgery until mid-morning). I cried out to God to somehow override all of this and get me to that appointment. About a hour later, a nurse came in and told me I was being released immediately and they had an ambulance ready to put me on a gurney and take me to my appointment across the hospital campus and back to the hospital!! So, I needed to quickly pack my things (it took 5 minutes). I actually got in to have my radiation treatment at 8:15am instead of 9am!! It was incredible.

Catheter Removal

I was released from the hospital Monday morning July 1. On Wednesday, I had an appointment at the urology department to remove my catheter (PTL!). But things were not that simple. Before the procedure, the nurse told me that after the catheter was removed, I would need to urinate. If I couldn’t, the catheter would be put back in (ugh!). My bladder was empty due to the catheter. So, using a syringe, she filled my bladder with 110 ml of solution. She had me hold a urine bottle to catch anything that came out, removed the catheter and, sure enough, fluid did come out. But it could have simply been the solution she had put into my bladder. I was instructed to stand for 10 minutes, try to urinate in the bottle, she would leave the room, and return in 10 minutes.  I tried several different approaches—relaxing, straining, etc.—but at the 6-minute mark, nothing had come out. I cried out to God, “Where are you? Why are you doing this to me!” But is suddenly caught myself panicking, and centered myself in Jesus. I said, “I know you are here, if I must leave with the catheter, I’ll be okay, I trust your goodness regardless of what happens. Stay with me.” I went into perfect calm even though I never urinated. The nurse came in, assessed the situation, and said that she was going to reinsert the catheter.  Then she paused and said to wait a few minutes. She wanted to talk to 2 or 3 more experienced nurses and she would return. After 5 minutes, she entered the room and announced, “OK, you are clear.  The others said that this happens often, and I was cleared. I was able to go home catheter-free and have urinated ever since (though it will take time to work through incontinence). You have no idea how great it is not to be catheterized!!

I’ll be honest. I have had hard times when God has not answered my cries. These are frustrating, confusing, and disappointing. But I bear testimony that I have, in fact, seen God do these things. And to top it off, I have never felt closer to Jesus and to Hope in all of this. I hope this has helped you know me better and that you find some encouragement in what I have said.

The Martin Institute & the Dallas Willard Research Center (MIDWRC) at Westmont College are
pleased to announce that the winner of the Book Award for 2024 is The Substance of
Consciousness: A Comprehensive Defense of Contemporary Substance Dualism (Wiley-
Blackwell, 2023) by Brandon Rickabaugh and J.P. Moreland.

Dallas Willard (1935-2013) was a thinker, pastor, and author of such books as The Spirit of the
Disciplines and The Divine Conspiracy. Now regarded as modern spiritual classics, these works
have inspired thousands of ordinary Christians to become extraordinary Christ-followers and
have influenced an entire generation of writers and teachers on Christian spiritual disciplines
and formation. The MIDWRC Annual Book Award Program was created in 2015 to help place an
enduring emphasis on the intellectual legacy of Dallas Willard by recognizing original written
work that shares his vision that invisible things such as soul, spirit, and the Kingdom of God are
part of reality and can be known via experiential interaction.

According to the announcement, Rickabaugh & Moreland’s The Substance of Consciousness was selected precisely because it provides a sustained defense of one of these “invisible things” – the human soul – from a battery of critics, philosophical and scientific, purporting to show that belief an immaterial soul is an intellectually discredited relic of a bygone age. Once upon a time, these critics suggest, it
was possible to believe in dualism, the idea that mind/soul and body were two distinct things,
but contemporary neuroscience proves that the mind just is part of the body and not a
separate thing at all. According to one reviewer, however, "Moreland and Rickabaugh have
written the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and sophisticated defense of substance dualism
available. They successfully tackle every anti-dualist argument in the literature, demonstrating
both the variety of options available to dualists and the fruitfulness of the dualist framework for
future scientific and philosophical research.” 

Brandon Rickabaugh is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Research Scholar of Philosophy of
Technology & Culture Palm Beach Atlantic University, Florida. J. P. Moreland is Distinguished
Professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University.

In this unique interview with my longtime friend and colleague, William Lane Craig, we discuss our friendship, some background on how our book project developed, and important work that each of us have been working on.

Robert C. Koons, noted professor of philosophy at University of Texas, Austin, finds the book "to be the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and sophisticated defense of substance dualism available today."

Our book makes the claim that the human person is an embodied fundamental, immaterial, and unifying substance. We offer a multidisciplinary approach, exploring areas of philosophy, cognitive science, neuroscience, and the sociology of mind-body beliefs

We seek to present the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and rigorous non-edited work on substance dualism in the field, as well as a detailed history of how property and substance dualism have been presented and evaluated over the last 150 years.

Alongside developing new and updated positive arguments for substance dualism, we also discuss key metaphysical notions and distinctions that inform the examination of substance dualism and its alternatives.

Koons continues:

[Rickabaugh and Moreland] tackle quite successfully every anti-dualist argument in the literature, demonstrating both the variety of options available to dualists and the fruitfulness of the dualist framework for future research, both scientific and philosophical. Especially impressive is their skill in drawing on Aristotelian, scholastic, and 19th century sources (Brentano, Husserl) to develop an attractive synthesis of dualism with hylomorphism. They bring to philosophy of mind theoretical resources, including the metaphysics of mereology, that are badly needed in today’s debates.

We think this unique volume will be perfect for professional philosophers, and also earn a place in the libraries of consciousness researchers, philosophical theologians, and religious studies scholars.

It is one of my great joys to do a regular podcast with my longtime friend, Stan Wallace, the CEO and President of Global Scholars. For over three decades, Stan's been faithfully engaging the big ideas that shape our culture.

The Thinking Christianly podcast was launched in 2021 with the inaugural episode centered on the theme, "Have We Lost Our Minds?" We seek to model a way to love God with all our minds (Lk. 10:27). With such love, we seek to show how we can "deepen our relationship with Christ and bring greater influence for Christ."

A dozen-and-a-half episodes later, our podcast continues to grow in content and reach. I hope you will take a listen today! Subscribe here. A new episode is released on the 15th of each month.

Our host, Jordan Plank, offers perceptive and relevant questions for Stan and me. Each episode is approximately 60-minutes, with a very conversational, laidback style as we respond spontaneously to the important issues of the day from a Christian perspective. I am confident that you will enjoy the conversation and learn a lot by tuning in. Moreover, all the conversations have helpful summary notes available at ThinkingChristianly.org.

The latest episode reflects on the important implications of the Incarnation (e.g., How can a shift in our understanding about the incarnation help us participate in the miraculous works of Christ in our everyday lives?).

Throughout the podcast, we cover a range of important topics and crucial questions. For example . . .

• Episode #6: What is Human Flourishing and How Do We Achieve It?
• Episode #7-8: What is the Soul, and Why Should We Care? (part one and two)
• Episodes #16-17: On Dying Well (part one and two).

We are very eager to help thoughtful Christians engage the tools of sound philosophical and theological reflection in order to love and serve God and our neighbors in spirit and truth (John 4:24).

If we are to love God adequately with the mind, then the mind must be exercised regularly, trained to acquire certain habits of thought, and filled with an increasingly rich set of distinctions and categories.

In that respect, the Thinking Christianly podcast is a dynamic example of such 'exercising', 'training' and 'filling', and I am so very honored to be doing this with Stan Wallace.