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The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters, by J. P. Moreland
Download PDF The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters, by J. P. Moreland
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In a culture in which science is believed to hold the answers to every question, spiritual realities like the soul are often ignored or ridiculed. We are told that neuroscience holds the key to explaining every aspect of human behavior. Yet Christian philosopher J. P. Moreland argues that Scripture, sound philosophical reasoning, and everyday experience all point to the reality of an immaterial soul. Countering the arguments of both naturalists and Christian scholars who embrace a material-only view of humanity, Moreland demonstrates why it is both biblical and reasonable to believe humans are essentially spiritual beings. He also describes the various components of the soul and how Christians can nurture their souls as disciples of Christ. Moreland shows that neuroscience and the soul are not competing explanations of human activity, but that both coexist and influence one another.
- Sales Rank: #419314 in eBooks
- Published on: 2014-02-14
- Released on: 2014-02-14
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
J.P Moreland delves into the subject of our soul and Spiritual growth in this book...We are reminded that the Soul Is Crucial for Self Understanding and maturing in the ways of Jesus. Although I cannot say that I agree with everything said in this book, I like the fact that JP Moreland offers a pretty in depth study of the Soul and the importance of understanding it during our Christian walk...
Though relatively short in the number of pages this book is definitely not one for Casual reading, it is a pretty intense study book on The Soul..
A review by Michelle Kidwell on NetGalley, March 28, 2014
This book was deep. Wow! Most of the book, i needed someone to break it down for me, but overall, it made me realize how important it is to feed the soul. As a teacher, it made me embrace how vital it is to teach this to our disciples. We are hit hard everyday about what we should look like from the culture, but very little is poured into what we should be doing for our soul. This book is definitely a wake-up call for us in the arena of our souls. I know personally I am going to be a lot more focused on feeding my soul spiritually. Thank you for this reading.
Review by JT Thomason on Netgalley, March 13 2014
The Soul 'We Know It's Real & Why It Matters by JP Moreland addresses the topic of the human soul. The author attempts to answer the question of whether "the soul" is real. The topic is approached from both a scientific and Bible based viewpoint. The author uses the topics of dualism and physicalism, as an introductory chapter, in small amount of space these only serve to make the topic even more difficult to understand.
The intended audience for this text is unclear. The terms and manner in which the topic is explained do seem to point to this book being for a student of theology. I do believe students of religion or science would find this book both interesting and thought provoking. The average reader may feel bogged down with the vocabulary that the author uses.
Review by Janet Forney on Netgalley, February 10, 2014
From the Back Cover
As we look to science for answers, spiritual realities are often dismissed.
Can science explain everything? Christian philosopher J. P. Moreland argues that Scripture, sound philosophical reasoning, and everyday experience all point to the reality of an immaterial soul.
Countering the arguments of both naturalists and scholars who embrace a material-only view of humanity, Moreland shows how neuroscience and the soul need not compete. Rather, they coexist and influence each other.
By demonstrating why it is both biblical and scientifically sound to regard humans as essentially spiritual beings, this penetrating volume illustrates the importance and means of nurturing one’s soul as a disciple of Christ.
About the Author
J.P. MORELAND (B.S. University of Missouri, Th.M. Dallas Theological Seminary, M. A. University of California-Riverside, and Ph.D. University of Southern California) is the Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University in La Mirada, California. He has co-planted three churches and he and his wife Hope attend Vineyard Anaheim church and are deeply committed to the body of believers there.
Most helpful customer reviews
39 of 42 people found the following review helpful.
A Great Starting Point - A Great Primer for A General Audience
By Keith H. Bray
J.P. Moreland's "The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters" ("The Soul") is a popular level treatment of Dr. Moreland's long-term project on consciousness, a defense of substance dualism, the existence of God and natural theology, intentioned to inform the Church and combat naturalism. This is analogous to Dr. William Lane Craig's four academic books exploring the issues of God and time whereby Dr. Craig also finalized his academic research by publishing a somewhat accessible and popular level treatment of his academic program in his book: " God and Time: Exploring God's Relationship to Time,"
The predecessors to The Soul are Dr. Moreland's "Consciousness and the Existence of God: A Theistic Argument," and "The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism," two incredible books meant for both an audience of Dr. Moreland's peers and graduate students conversant with metaphysics, philosophy of mind and Dr. Moreland's essays and other mediums that argue for substance dualism. Both of the latter books are not meant for a general reading audience, but The Soul is the exception.
Those readers familiar with Dr. Moreland's works and passions know that substance dualism and the soul are primary themes in approximately one-half of his writings. In The Soul, Dr. Moreland has succeeded in bringing down to earth many of the concepts an unfamiliar reader would normally grapple with when reading his materials, especially because of the terminology that is involved. For example, in my other review of "Loving God with Your Mind: Essays in Honor of J.P. Moreland," a few of the reviewers were put off by the difficulty reading the essays written in honor of his work, especially his work on the soul. No hubris is intended, and I would recommend the reader to look at my reviews of the above-referenced book as it places J.P.'s entire program in a context that is easy to understand and imbibe.
For those conversant with JP's academic writings, I do not recommend purchasing The Soul unless you plan on using the book for Sunday school, High School/College Ministry or even first year course for undergraduates. The reason is that you have read this material before, at a much more technical level.
(Conversely, those of you that are conversant but have not read for some time, The Soul can be used a primer that enables you to read or re-read the two books referenced above. This is more true of chapters 3 and 4 [they are somewhat technical but Dr. Moreland has honed his arguments so they flow much easier, especially such as those that were set forth in his book "Body and Soul," that was written prior to the books referenced above]. As stated herein, each chapter does have a structerd outline and self-contained glossary making the contents easy to memorize).
Additionally, The Soul is anything but guilty of being a cut-and-paste marketing byproduct. Quite the contrary as Dr. Moreland desires to teach those unfamiliar with these issues at a level they can understand, and give them a basis to continue learning by simplifying these issues for a general audience that have little to no knowledge on these matters without being simplistic is no easy task, but Dr. Moreland has accomplished just that--an intoxicating clarity. This book comes with my highest recommendation and those interested in this subject matter must have this book for their personal libraries.
Having read Dr. Moreland's books for the past 20 years, including the two books referenced above, I enthusiastically read the Soul in its entirety over the weekend. That is, it is one of those rare books that is an absolute pleasure to read. Again, the real point is not to iterate that I am a smart guy, but the level of difficulty The Soul exemplifies. Dr. Moreland significantly simplified its contents as The Soul's target audience are those readers that have little to no knowledge about the biblical basis for the soul, the nature of the soul, biblical and non-biblical arguments for the soul, and the importance of the soul in the context of the present culture war, especially against the worldview of scientific naturalism or theists that reject substance dualism (e.g., the problem of consciousness).
In the past, Dr. Moreland has published a similar and much more compact book on the soul for RZIM ministries. The Soul also unpacks issues and themes about being human, virtue ethics and character cultivation in addressing issues of heaven and hell that all Christians ought to feel a moral incumbency to learn, know and inevitably teach this subject matter to others. The mere fact that Dr. Moreland has devoted so much time to this issue over the last two+ decades should give both the fan of Dr. Moreland and the curious readers serious pause as to the import the themes this book are meant to serve.
(It should be mentioned that The Soul is not a historical anthology--it is a straight-forward teaching on the biblical and philosophic arguments for the soul, specifically `Thomistic Substance-Dualism.'). For those readers interested in an up-to-date and accessible history of the soul, I recommend "A Brief History of the Soul," by Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro (2011). This latter book is a tad more difficult and I would recommend reading The Soul before tackling the historical issues. I also recommend reading Dr. Moreland's very important essay 'The Physical Sciences, Neuroscience, and Dualism' that contains arguments for substance dualism; and, more importantly, Dr. Moreland argues and shows how "scientific data [and research] play virtually no role at all in philosophy-of-mind literature,'" [emphasis added] (pg. 845). This essay can be found in another incredible resource: "The Nature of Nature: Examining the Role of Naturalism in Science" edited by Bruce Gordon and William Dembski. In tandem with Dr. Moreland's almost prophetic insights contained in the previously referenced essay, the reviewer can now find newly released books on neuroscience, written by non-theist neuroscientists that corroborate Dr. Moreland's arguments. If you can locate this essay without purchasing the latter book--although this is another fantastic resource that belongs in your library--you should gain a full mastery of substance dualism and be prompted to teach others).
In closing, The Soul is fairly small, the 5 chapters are rich concise, and for those that may still have some difficulty tackling or understanding the content of the chapters, each chapter contains both a it's own review of the contents, including a glossary that defines important terms (JP places an asterisk next to the words that carry the most importance [e.g., the definition of functionalism] that require a definition) so the reader can gain a mastery of the chapter's content if they happen to be unfamiliar with these very important issues. That is, this is a book that is to be practiced.
Although The Soul has enormous utility in imparting the knowledge, there are also many collateral issues Dr. Moreland touches and one may end up telling themselves "after all these years now I understand that argument."
The reviewer can glean the chapter contents from Amazon as they are not iterated in this review. Dr. Moreland has done a favor for those unfamiliar with substance dualism and the importance of consciousness in the battle against scientific naturalism. Dr. Moreland's The Soul makes these issues accessible to everyone, and it is concurrently the best primer on the market to date.
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
Subtracting 1 star for some issues
By J. Remington Bowling
This is a good book that could use some editing, in my opinion. Moreland's arguments for the soul are both biblical and philosophical. The arguments themselves are good and on that basis alone I would give the book four stars. However the book has several problems that cause me to subtract a star.
1. There are a few errors. For instance, at one point he references Lamentations 1:1 in support of the view that "there are passages in which nephesh refers to the continuing locus of personal identity that departs to a disembodied afterlife as the last breath ceases"(p. 46). But Lamentations 1:1 seems entirely irrelevant to the topic and the word "nephesh" doesn't occur in the passage.
2. The book doesn't strike a proper balance in clarity. At some points the book holds your hand through issues you, the reader, aren't expected to understand. At other points, it assumes too much. Let me just give a few examples of where the book lacked clarity. (1)His remarks on the synecdoche position on pages 46-47 are hard to parse out. At one point he seems to be objecting to the synecdoche position, but then he seems to offer a position which isn't significantly different than it. (2) On pages 77-78 Moreland tries to distinguish between a thought and a belief in a way that isn't clear. (3) On page 80 Moreland talks about how "mental states cannot be described by physical language".
Now someone might be able to parse these things out and make sense of them. My point isn't that the book is impossible to understand in such places, only that the book lacks clarity in these places and that this lack of clarity is in stark contrast to the clarity which it strives to achieve in other places.
3. The book ends off topic. The final chapter (chapter 5) takes up the question of the afterlife. That's not off topic per se. I think it's valid to transition from a discussion of whether or not the soul exists to what implications belief in the soul has for the after life. The problem is that Moreland takes it much further than he needs to and ends up spending 30 pages giving us an apologetic for the traditional view of hell over against things like universalism and annihilationism. This seems especially odd since earlier in the book Moreland distinguishes between three types of substance dualism but says zippity-doo-da about what merits or demerits these various substance dualist approaches have. Yet he spends around 30 pages arguing about a particular view of Hell? I agree with Moreland's view of Hell over against universalism and annihilationism, but I don't think that sort of apologetic has it's place in this book--especially in light of more relevant topics which he passed right over!
4. The apologetic in the last 30 pages is of low-quality. Aside from the fact that I didn't think Morelands discussion was very relevant at this point, it also didn't seem very impressive. For instance, against annihilationism Moreland says that "He would be wrong to destroy something of such value just because it has chosen a life it was not intended to live" (p. 167). But he offers no reason to think a reversal of this claim, which immediately comes to mind, is false: it would be wrong to eternally torment something of such value. And doesn't this latter claim fit with intuitions about putting animals out of their misery? Yes, he latter addresses something like this in talking about euthanasia as an analogy and quality of life vs sacred life, but that hardly resolves the issue given the much greater suffering in Hell. Another example: he frames the annihiliationist position as holding that "biblical flames in hell are literal" (p. 173), but annihiliationism doesn't depend on this and I've heard annihilationists deny the literal reading. (Again, I don't agree with annihilationism. I'm just pointing out where his argument is weak.) Moreland ends with a reliance upon Molinism, which I think fails to provide satisfactory answers and ends up raising more problems than solutions (I've written about this some [...]) 5. The book includes an excerpt from Moreland's festschrift at the end. That could be a bonus or a minus. You could think of it like this: you order a large pizza and when the delivery guy comes to your house he says "Here's your large pizza. AND here is a free box of buffalo wings!" Bonus. Or: you order a large pizza and when the delivery guy comes to your house he says "Here's your large pizza. AND, we replaced 1/3rd of your pizza with buffalo wings!" That's a minus... I wanted a large pizza, not buffalo wings. The festschrift excerpt would usually be a bonus, but since it follows after what feels like 30 pages of unnecessary material, given the topic of the book, it ends up feeling like they just subtracted 1/3rd of your pizza and replaced it with something you didn't order. Why not use that space to explicate something more relevant to the book topic, like the various schools of substance dualism? Again, this negative impression is mainly created from the last chapter of the book. I'm sure later I'll enjoy reading the festschrift excerpt.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
A Thoughtful Book About a Debated Subject
By James B. Pate
J.P. Moreland. The Soul: How We Know It’s Real and Why It Matters. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014.
I would like to thank Moody Publishers for my review copy of this book.
J.P. Moreland is an evangelical Christian apologist and philosopher. In The Soul, he defends the belief that human beings have souls, which can exist apart from the body. Moreland does so philosophically, and he also appeals to Scripture, both the Hebrew Bible and also the New Testament. Moreover, Moreland refers to near death experiences that he finds credible. Moreland also interacts with related issues, such as the question of whether animals have souls (his answer is a qualified yes), as well as heaven, hell, and the question of how God will judge those who never heard the Gospel. On the topic of hell, Moreland disputes annihilationism and universalism, defending hell as an eternal place for the unsaved.
The parts of the book in which Moreland interacts with the Bible were quite lucid, in my opinion. The philosophical parts were mostly clear—-at least I think that I got the gist of what Moreland was arguing—-but there was one section that was particularly difficult, and Moreland warns the reader that it will be! Each chapter closes with a bullet-point summary of the chapter’s points, as well as a glossary of terms. The end of the book has a glossary of all of the key terms.
The topic of the soul is of interest to me, on account of my own religious background. My experience has been in Armstrongism and Seventh-Day Adventism, and they did not believe in an immortal soul; rather, they maintained that the dead are unconscious until the resurrection. Interestingly, biblical studies and theology have moved a bit away from emphasizing the immortal soul, as some claim that such a concept does not exist in the Hebrew Bible, and others maintain that focusing on the immortal soul is anti-physical and detracts from what the New Testament itself emphasizes: the bodily resurrection and God’s redemption of the physical world. Moreland is contending against these trends and is attempting to correct what he believes are misunderstandings.
There is also the question of whether the soul is even necessary to explain human consciousness and thoughts, as many hold that these things are natural or physical results of the brain. (Ironically, on the very night that I was reading this book, the TV show Extant, starring Halle Berry, made reference to this debate. And Moreland himself refers to the AMC series The Walking Dead!) Can we truly say that the soul causes consciousness, when damage to the brain can result in a loss of consciousness, which may indicate that it is the brain that causes consciousness in the first place? My impression is that Moreland argues that the soul and the brain interact with each other, that one has an effect on the other. In the same way that the soul sees through the eyes, and damaged eyes can affect what the soul sees, so likewise can a damaged brain impact how a soul thinks or whether a person is conscious. The soul is like the driver of a car: the driver is not the car, as the soul is distinct from the body, but a damaged car can affect the driver and what the driver can do.
I found this book to be thoughtful. I wish that Moreland had addressed in more detail the biblical passages that describe death as a sleep (though I was impressed that he acknowledged that parts of the Hebrew Bible present shades in the afterlife sleeping). Moreover, I thought that his discussion of the soul in the Hebrew Bible sought to impose a uniform meaning on nephesh throughout the Hebrew Bible (though he did indicate his awareness of nuance). Overall, however, Moreland anticipated and wrestled with objections, and I give him credit for that.
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