God in Himself: Scripture, Metaphysics, and the Task of Christian Theology. By Steven J. Duby. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2019. 352 pp. $40.00, paperback. ISBN 978-0830848843.

God in Himself: Scripture, Metaphysics, and the Task of Christian Theology falls within a long tradition of theological and philosophical scholarship in the pursuit of exploring the dimensions of divine aseity. In this work Steven J. Duby seeks to defend the thesis that, contrary to the claims of some contemporary theologians, natural theology and metaphysics have a place in the epistemic domain of theology proper.

 The book is divided into five chapters. Chapter one examines the purpose, object, nature, and limitations of theological knowledge. Duby asserts that God in his aseity—outside his economic actions—is the object of theological knowledge (25–26). Engaging with Luther and Karl Barth, the author defends the possibility of knowing God in se even with a Deus absconditus objection, which raises the challenge of divine hiddenness for the doctrine of God.

The burden of the second chapter is to establish the place and purpose of natural theology in church history. Duby begins his exploration by analyzing the positions of theologians in the early church and medieval age. He contends that Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin (among others) understood natural theology to have a proper place in God’s divine self-disclosure to humans. Contrary to the push from students of Barth and Van Til, natural theology, observes Duby, held significant sway among Reformers. In the reformed epistemology sphere, Alvin Plantinga receives some attention as a theologian who does not position himself within the territory of those who affirm natural theology’s utility in the pursuit of knowing God. Duby summarily concludes by affirming the positive role of natural theology in God’s divine self-disclosure to humanity.

Moving to an analysis of the place of Christology in theology proper, chapter three engages with Barth and others who align closely with the Barthian method. Boiled down to its essentials, a Barthian method of theology begins with Christ and the incarnation as the epistemic locus of the doctrine of God. Contra Barth’s all-consuming Christological epistemology, Duby argues that Scripture, not Christ is the primary epistemological principle for a theology proper. Even so, he presents a positive case for the role of Christology in the doctrine of God, concluding that Christ is the basic principle of “our growth in theological understanding as those already united to him by faith” (177). The chapter closes with a response to Barth’s insistence that the extra Calvinisticum entails two Christs, one asarkos and one ensarkos.

Chapter four explores concerns raised in recent literature regarding the value of metaphysics as it relates to theologia. Duby engages with contemporary theologians (notably Schleiermacher and Barth), who express reservations towards the profitability of metaphysics as a helpful tool for theology proper. He proceeds to make a positive case for a healthy relationship between theologia and metaphysics, drawing extensively from medieval and early reformation scholars. Duby establishes that the study of God in se can benefit from the use of metaphysical concepts, and, far from driving a wedge between God and creature, metaphysics is not the culprit for any chasm created between God’s transcendence and his economy in the created world.

The final chapter defends an analogia entis, wherein humans use analogical language to describe God in se. The author provides an exposition of Aquinas’s philosophy of language in the lineage of Aristotle’s view of analogy. The representative sampling from medieval and early modern scholars focuses primarily on analogy and univocity, the latter being a concept developed in rich detail by Duns Scotus. Duby notes carefully the criticisms raised by Barth and Wolfhart Pannenberg, who judge the general idea of analogia entis to be a theologically dangerous jump from the contingent world to truths about a divine cause (271). He then concludes that the use of the analogy of attribution is a fair and helpful resource in present-day discourse about God in se (291).

As a project in divine aseity, God in Himself is a success for several reasons. First, the concept of God a se is often thought to be an idea of medieval ratiocination. In recent theological musings, God’s aseity is hardly touched upon; for this reason, Duby’s work is a welcome contribution. What is more, the work is a masterpiece of classically inclined theology. Second, the book is robustly philosophical, stringing together the disciplines of epistemology, ontology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language with theology. As a work of theology, Duby’s employment of solid hermeneutical principles—the book evidently assumes authorial intent and Scripture’s inspiration—lays the foundation for sound exegetical conclusions. This is evident from the work’s careful analysis of relevant texts of Scripture. Duby’s dependence of Aquinas in no way eclipses the book’s use of Scripture to engage with and enlarge Aquinas’ thoughts. Third, even if academically out of range for the lay person, the book is accessible, and its contents are easy to follow. The headings and subheadings sufficiently inform the reader about the contents and arguments of a section or chapter. Additionally, one can easily follow Duby’s position in the process of dialoguing with his partners. Throughout the book, readers will find summaries of positions followed by the author’s corresponding responses under the recurring heading “Response.” The book’s format, then, allows for a rather thorough and accurate skimming of its contents.

The book admittedly rests extensively on the shoulders of Aquinas; as is evident throughout, 20^th century neo-orthodox, Barthian theology is presented as a challenger to Thomistic thought. One wonders, however, why Duby did not put forward arguments of theologians from the same century as Barth in defense of the work’s thesis. This observation owes itself to the fact that metaphysics in theology has shifted somewhat in the 20^th century. Analytic theology, coupled with modality in metaphysics, seems to have enjoyed a fruitful career in the last hundred years, a time when Christian philosophers have availed themselves of the opportunity to use metaphysics in their theological writings. Scholars such as Dean Zimmerman, Peter Van Inwagen, Brian Leftow, Michael Loux, and Alvin Plantinga (among many others), have published extensively in the intersection between metaphysics and theology. Most prominently, the metaphysics of modality seems to have taken center stage in the last several decades. It seems, therefore, that Duby’s work would have benefitted from interacting with the contemporary defenders of natural theology.

At one juncture, Duby looks to Plantinga as one who objects to a type of natural theology based on classical foundationalism, a theory in epistemology that understands properly basic (foundational) beliefs as the bedrock from which justification is conferred to other beliefs (113-14). Duby contends that Aquinas is a classical foundationalist. Two things may be said in response. First, Plantinga’s assessment of classical foundationalism is largely limited to his argument for an externalist epistemology (foundationalism is internalist); it is not a defense of or attack on natural theology. Second, in Plantinga’s Warrant series, Aquinas and Calvin are used as models of what Plantinga calls, sensus divinitatis, a concept strongly in favor of Duby’s thesis. Duby appeals to the sensus divinitatis when engaging with Plantinga; however, it appears the discussion lacked sufficient exposition at that point.

These minor criticisms notwithstanding, God in Himself is of great service to theologians who appreciate philosophy, especially metaphysics. Should there be a second edition of this book, the inclusion of a glossary of terms would be helpful, as even the more academic reader may not be classically trained enough to thoughtfully engage with the work in an exhaustive fashion.

The Soul of Theological Anthropology: A Cartesian Evaluation. By Joshua R. Farris. New York: Routledge, 2017. 198 pp. $135.00, Hardcover. ISBN-13: 978-1472436511.

Joshua Farris’s chief goal in The Soul of Theological Anthropology: A Cartesian Evaluation (STA) is rather modest. As a work of theological anthropology, Farris wields the tools of analytic theology to make a plausible case for a nuanced version of substance dualism. What is more, Farris contends that such Cartesian dualism enjoys greater explanatory power over against alternative options vis-à-vis the Scripture data, experience, and current empirical discoveries. The conclusions drawn in STA are arrived at in the form of rebutting arguments, as opposed to undercutting arguments. In other words, Farris does not seek to directly poke holes in the arguments made in favor of other anthropologies; rather, his consistent aim throughout is a presentation of a more suitable alternative. Furthermore, Farris acknowledges the need for continued research, recognizing his work as merely the beginning of a process that underscores the benefits of Cartesianism as a viable and favorable ontology. STA offers a modern treatment of a view (substance dualism) that has been the subject of a great deal of misrepresentations by clearly articulating and delineating its philosophical boundaries.

Farris parses out Cartesianism by initially showcasing three species of person-body substance dualism (PBSD), the concept that persons are either identical to their souls or supervene on soul instead of body. He suggests that, while pure substance dualism (PSD) and composite substance dualism (COSD) as variations of PBSD are better candidates in contrast to other anthropologies (e.g., materialism), compound substance dualism (CSD) is the best option on hand, for it can robustly account for the desiderata of an adequate anthropology (2). CSD is influenced, in large part, by John Cooper’s ‘holistic’ dualism, where humans are a compound of body and soul, yet function as a unity. In developing his position, Farris engages extensively with recent contemporary scholarship in theology, biblical studies, and philosophy.

Part I of the book is divided into two chapters. The first lays out a broadly construed case for the adoption of Cartesianism as a favorable bedrock on which to build a theological anthropology. Given that persons have privileged access to mental events, it follows intuitively and naturally that persons cannot be simply identified in terms of property-bundles or a physical aggregate of some sort. Recognizably, then, personal agents must be metaphysically simple, and, by extension, qualia-type experiences are tied to the soul “in a way that defies analysis and complexity of parts” (28). The self/soul, therefore, is a metaphysical simple. Considering the conclusion of the soul’s simplicity, chapter 2 contends that the biblical narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and glory is best explained on the basis of PBSD. Farris does not argue definitively for substance dualism; rather, he makes the modest claim that substance dualism has better explanatory power, yielding greater plausibility with respect to the data (32). The chapter closes with an inquisitive investigation of the different breeds of PBSD, teasing out the strengths and weaknesses of each view. Farris concludes that CSD affirms a pure mental subject in line with PSD with the added constraint that persons naturally and normally are attached to their bodies (43–44).

Composed of three chapters, part II is the gravitational center of the book. Chapter 3 explores the various philosophical positions concerning the soul’s origin. According to Farris, the mind-body relation is intimately tied with a position on origins. He evaluates creationism (the preferred view throughout church history) and traducianism, finding sufficient reasons for rejecting the latter in favor of a nuanced form of the former, which he calls special creationism (SC). Though SC is the favorable of the two contenders, Farris finds that, when taking the philosophical data into account, the evidence adduced in support of SC falls short of a decisive conclusion (66). A third view—associated with William Hasker—called emergent substance dualism is then evaluated. This relatively new contribution to the discussion about the origin of souls argues that the soul emerges out of the body in accordance with “law-like connections that establish the intimate connection between body/brain and the mind or physical stuff with phenomenal and conscious experience” (67). Farris explains that emergent substance dualism makes sense of the empirical data as it relates to neurophysiology and evolution. Emergent dualism’s weakness, however, rests in its close affiliation with naturalism, a doctrine that eliminates or severely weakens divine intervention and draws a necessary dependence of the mind on the brain. After a careful analysis of the three views, Farris marshals enough philosophical evidence to conclude that some sort of hybrid between creationism and emergentism may be the preferred model to adequately account for the anthropological desiderata.

Chapter 4 presents a detailed account of the novel view: emergent creationism (EC). Succinctly put, this view retains the divine origin of souls associated with creationism, while simultaneously adopting the emergent thesis that links the existence of the soul with the existence of the body. In EC, then, “the soul requires a unique and higher cause beyond the physical order, but comes to exist by, with, and/or through the physical aggregate (i.e. human body/brain)” (87). The point is that God brings forth the soul directly, but the soul’s existence is mediated via biological generation. The body is not simply a vessel of the soul; it is a concrete particular that actualizes the full potential, power, and function of the soul. Farris concludes that EC offers a more natural unity relation between soul and body in contrast to PSD and SC.

The relationship between the soul and the body is the focus of chapter 5. Farris defends the position that CSD and EC can best explain the body-soul relationship in consideration of experience and Christian teaching. The Cartesianism advanced by Farris accounts for the soul as independently existing ens per se, and thus potentially existing disembodied (110). Emergent dualism cannot allow for the possibility of disembodied existence, for the soul is necessarily dependent on the body. What is more, emergentism falls outside Christian teaching. With respect to the question of origins, a pure form of substance dualism is also not without its problems. EC, therefore, appears to explain, in a better way, the apparent mystery associated with the mind-body interaction.

Part III is devoted to a unique contribution to analytic theology. Farris contends that the theological concepts of hamartiology and soteriology have not enjoyed sufficient exploration from analytic theologians. In chapter 6 he undertakes to spell out the details of hamartiology and soteriology related to substance dualism. Developing the arguments of the previous chapters, Farris concludes that EC holds substantial promise in providing an answer to the issue of transmission of sin. As a distinct variation of the views of origin, EC’s commitment to the creation of the soul as a divine event allows for the connection of every soul to its original soul (Adam) by virtue of divine causal generation (125–126). Chapter 7 then shifts gears to a more detailed analysis of the interim state. Because souls have ens per se existence and bodies have ens per accidens existence, the soul can continue to exist apart from the body. However, as has been argued in the preceding chapters, the body is created (though the soul is logically prior) to supplement the soul functionally, phenomenologically, and teleologically. This means that, apart from the body, the person/soul cannot fully experience the world. The biblical data, as Farris demonstrates, presents an eschatological anthropology that necessitates the body. The beatific vision requires embodied existence, such that the disembodied soul in the interim state is re-embodied by a glorified body that “enhances or intensifies the knowledge and experience of the soul’s vision of God” (138).

Part IV concludes STA by sharpening the focus on disembodied existence and resurrection. In chapter 8, all models of origin are analyzed. By virtue of the conceivability argument, Farris maintains that emergent dualism cannot account for disembodied existence and pure forms of substance dualism encounter similar problems. Naturally, then, EC, with its emphasis on teleo-functional existence (that is, the soul has a telos and a function inextricably tied to a body) best accounts for disembodied existence. Chapter 9 presents further challenges for emergent and traducian views related to the plausibility of the soul’s persistence after somatic death.

STA makes an original contribution to theological anthropology, generally. More specifically, Farris is a modern Cartesian pioneer, and his investment in the field makes STA a tour de force for at least three reasons. First, Farris has salvaged Cartesianism from the grip of materialism, with the latter’s ever-increasing number of adherents. As noted throughout the work, substance dualism has lost its appeal as a viable philosophical position because of its aptitude towards an over-emphasis on the soul at the expense of the body. By parsing out person-body substance dualism, Farris successfully locates the object of the materialist’s attack as a form of pure substance dualism, where the soul-emphasis is particularly prominent. Disambiguating Cartesianism in the way Farris does is highly beneficial, broadening the scope of the discussion and bringing back substance dualism as a plausible position within one’s philosophical options. Second, the concept of EC presented in STA is creative and analytically informed. The clarity with which Farris puts forth his evaluation bespeaks a careful work of philosophy. His strategy may perhaps be the most notable characteristic of the work. By comparing and contrasting the various positions pertinent to the philosophy of mind, Farris meticulously sifts through each, discarding the weak elements while adopting the more favorable tenants. Third, STA fills the biblical vacuum that philosophical theology and analytic theology are sometimes prone to create. Farris’s use of biblical data is used to buttress the philosophical intuition of Cartesianism. Doing so stabilizes and strengthens his position and also exemplifies a model work in analytic theology (with an emphasis on theology).

By measure of adding momentum to the project, two possible avenues of further research may be immediately discerned—both of which would be a constructive supplement to the path already cleared by Farris. First, exegetes who are well-equipped in biblical languages can add to the project by performing robust word studies of anthropological words found in the Scriptures and the corresponding extra-biblical literature. Anthropological word studies in the last century have been mostly limited to data gathered exclusively from the Pauline corpus. Accordingly, an exegetical study of the anthropological terms in the Gospels against the backdrop of the Greco-Roman and Jewish Sitz im Leben along with the anthropological data of the Old Testament would further advance the analytic prowess so characteristic of STA. Second, Farris’s emergent-creationist CSD thesis raises some riveting questions for Christology. Systematic theologians would fare well to evaluate and expand on Farris’s conclusions against the backdrop of the conciliar understanding of the hypostatic union. One query to pursue is the application of Farris’s model to the incarnation. How does Farris’s model account for Christ’s human soul in light of his conclusion that the problem of (sin) transmission is explained in generative terms (all souls are connected to Adam as an effect of one divine cause)? Can Farris escape the conclusion that, given his model, Christ appears to have inherited original sin? Third, philosophers should critically appraise the idea of emergent creationism. Is it adequate to label this kind of creationism as emergent? Emergentism details a causal relationship between high-complexity neural states and mental events. In this view, the brain causes the mind to come into existence. Unlike reductive materialism, emergentism does not allow for the reduction of the mental to the physical, implying that conscious events cannot be predicted or exhaustively explained by neural events. In the philosophical literature, emergentism understands the brain to be the formal, efficient, and immediate cause of the mind/soul. But if, as Farris argues, God is the efficient and immediate cause of the soul, qualifying his position as emergent appears to create an oxymoron.

Undoubtedly, Farris has broken ground for future expansion in the area of philosophical anthropology. I eagerly commend STA to theologians of every stripe, particularly those who are seeking to hone the analytic side of theology. In this way, Farris’s analytic approach would serve the biblical theologian well, especially those trained in exegesis. Likewise, his biblical emphasis and Scripture incorporation should serve as a worthwhile welcome to philosophical theologians who are inclined to remain within the contours of the analytic tradition. STA, therefore, fulfils the task of further uniting philosophy and theology. This work may not definitively succeed in persuading the unpersuaded to adopt a composite form of substance dualism and its accompanying emergent creationism. Admittedly, some philosophers, such as proponents of eliminative materialism, may even go so far as rejecting the foundational propositions and, a fortiori, some of the desiderata of Farris’s anthropological model, thereby judging the project a failure from the start. And that is okay, for that would not undercut the value of this work as an important contribution. Even so, there is little question that STA succeeds in what it set out to accomplish: retrieve a specific genus of substance dualism (CSD) from mischaracterizations by parsing out Cartesianism, and pave the way for future advances in theological anthropology by bridging the gap between analytic theology and other fields of study.

The purpose of this blog is to engage with every issue known to man. In other words, this blog has no limits. Yet, there is a strict limitation. All published entries will seek to demonstrate the author’s ability to rightly handle the word of God.

If the goal is to exhibit a correct handling of the Scripture, then, by necessity, solid exegesis based on sound hermeneutical principles must be present. The aim of each entry ought to be an exposition of the author’s intent. This means that, when reviewing books/articles, the reviewer must be judicious and seek to accurately present the author’s intention. When engaging with texts of Scripture, the goal is to properly present the text, paying careful attention to the various contextual elements (canonical, historical, etc.) in order to determine the original author’s intention.

May the reader be edified and encouraged.