Pearce, Kenneth L.

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Asbury Theological Seminary

Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers Volume 34 Issue 3 Article 6 7-1-2017 Farris & Hamilton, eds., IDEALISM AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY Kenneth L. Pearce Follow this and additional works at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy Recommended Citation Pearce, Kenneth L. (2017) "Farris & Hamilton, eds., IDEALISM AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY," Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers: Vol. 34 : Iss. 3 , Article 6. Available at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy/vol34/iss3/6 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers by an authorized editor of ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. BOOK REVIEWSIdealism and Christian Theology , edited by Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton. Bloomsbury, 2016. Pp. 244. $100 (hardcover), $89.99 (ebook).KENNETH L. PEARCE, Trinity College DublinIn recent years, analytic philosophers have begun to take metaphysi-cal idealism more seriously. (See, for instance, John Foster, A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenalistic Idealism [Oxford University Press, 2008]; Michael Pelczar, Sensorama: A Phenomenalist Analysis of Spacetime and its Contents [Oxford University Press, 2015]; Thomas Hofweber, Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics [Oxford University Press, 2016], chapter 10; Tyron Goldschmidt and Kenneth L. Pearce, eds., Idealism: New Essays in Metaphysics [Oxford University Press, 2017].) Simultaneously, there has been an increase in dialogue between theology and analytic philosophy, as witnessed, for instance, by the Journal of Analytic Theology, founded in 2013. The present volume stands at the intersection of these two trends, as an exploration of the ways metaphysical idealism might make constructive contributions to Christian theology. The book consists of nine new essays together with two previously published essays. Seven of the authors are theologians; four are philosophers. The book aims for unity rather than diversity: the “idealism” discussed is that of George Berkeley and Jona-than Edwards, and the “Christian theology” discussed is conservative/traditional Protestant theology. All of the contributors are sympathetic to both views. (The volume also lacks another kind of diversity: all eleven of the authors are male.)Berkeleian/Edwardsian idealism is understood to deny the existence of mind-independent material objects and hold instead that the physi-cal world is somehow composed of divine ideas. (The interpretation of Berkeley as holding that the world is composed of divine ideas is contro-versial, but is defended, within the volume, by James Spiegel and Keith Yandell. In what follows, I adopt the volume’s practice of using the term “idealism” narrowly to refer to this view.) Each essay aims to make the case that idealism can be applied productively to some problem in Chris-tian theology.pp. 365–369	 FAITH	AND	PHILOSOPHY Vol.	34	No.	3 July	2017doi: 10.5840/faithphil201734382 All rights reservedFaith and Philosophy366As	 is	 often	 the	 case	with	multi-author	 collections,	 the	 quality	 of	 the	essays is somewhat uneven. However, more than half of them are excel-lent and the book as a whole is certainly thought-provoking. It is to be hoped that this book will be the beginning of a sustained conversation on the	philosophical	and	theological	questions	it	raises.This volume is not primarily dedicated to the defensive project of showing that idealism is compatible with Christian orthodoxy, but rather to	the	constructive	project	of	showing	that	idealism	can	offer	compelling	accounts of certain Christian doctrines. These accounts, it is claimed, solve certain	problems	faced	by	attempts	to	account	for	these	doctrines	within	other metaphysical frameworks. Nevertheless, this project will surely be all for naught if idealism cannot be shown to be consistent with basic Christian commitments. One might well worry that idealism is inconsis-tent with the importance orthodox Christianity accords to the bodily na-ture of the human being. In fact, however, four of the strongest essays in the volume—those of Mark Hamilton, Marc Cortez, Oliver Crisp, and James Arcadi—provide interesting and powerful responses to these wor-ries and, indeed, go farther by arguing that idealism is actually superior to traditional views (such as hylomorphism and substance dualism) in its ability	to	provide	an	adequate	theology	of	the	body.	I	will	first	make	some	general remarks on this problem, then some more particular remarks on these four essays.Christians have traditionally believed that the human person is a unity of soul (mind) and body, that the whole (psychophysical) person has been corrupted by the Fall, that in the Incarnation the Son took on a complete (psychophysical) human nature, and that the whole (psychophysical) human nature is to be redeemed, so that there will ultimately be a resurrec-tion of the dead in which souls are reunited with bodies. These issues have often	 also	 been	 connected	with	 reflection	 on	 the	 sacraments,	which	 are	bodily acts traditionally understood to be “means of grace.” To disregard or denigrate the body is to depart from ecumenical Christian orthodoxy in a rather serious way. Further, it is easy to see why idealism might be thought to do this. While (as many of the contributors emphasize) neither Berkeley nor Edwards means his idealism to deny the reality of bodies, on idealism it seems that the human person really is the soul or mind and our embodi-ment	is	not	a	matter	of	any	kind	of	deep	metaphysical	union	with	a	body	but	simply	our	having	certain	patterns	of	perceptions.	The	question,	then,	is why embodiment should be a good or natural condition for the human person, and how this fact about human nature (that we are naturally em-bodied beings) can be connected with the central doctrines outlined above. What,	precisely,	is	the	difference	between	a	pattern	of	ideas	that	counts	as	‘embodied’	and	one	that	doesn’t,	and	why	is	 it	better	 for	us	 to	have	the	former	than	the	latter?Hamilton’s essay is entitled, “On the Corruption of the Body: A Theo-logical	Argument	for	Metaphysical	Idealism.”	The	question	of	the	essay	is how Edwardsian idealism might interact with the doctrine of the BOOK REVIEWS 367fallenness of humanity, as understood in the Reformed tradition to which Edwards himself belonged. Hamilton observes that this tradition usually assumed mind-body dualism, at least in the weak sense that the mind and the body are taken to be numerically distinct objects each possessing its own properties, so that the mind lacks physical properties and the body lacks mental properties (108–109). This thesis would be endorsed not only by Platonic/Cartesian substance dualists, but also by hylomorphists and (as Hamilton hints later in the essay, 115–116) non-reductive physicalists. A human person, according to this view, consists of an immaterial mind/soul and a physical body rightly related. Embodiment is not essential for personhood,	 but	 is	 required	 for	 proper	 function	 in	 the	material	 world	(109–110). Employing this view of the human person, Reformed theolo-gians have generally held that the corruption we inherit from Adam is a corruption of the entire person, body and soul together. It is not a cor-ruption of one or the other, nor is it a corruption of each separately, but a corruption of both together.The central point of Hamilton’s article is that the Reformed tradi-tion locates the corruption of the Fall precisely at the union of mind and body,	but	this	union	or	interaction	is,	of	course,	the	central	difficulty	for	mind-body dualism. Indeed, even property dualisms and non-reductive physicalisms	have	well-known	difficulties	in	describing	the	relationship	between mental properties and physical properties. Hence it is precisely where dualism is at its most problematic that it is most relevant to our fallenness. By contrast, Edwards’s idealism does not face this problem. According to Edwards (as Hamilton interprets him), humans are indeed minds rightly related to bodies, but bodies are mere collections of ideas, and bodily corruption, too, is a mere collection of ideas. Mental corruption is thus understood as the having of certain disordered desires, and bodily corruption is understood as the experience of certain sorts of ideas, and these can be understood to be naturally related to one another without any metaphysically mysterious interaction.Hamilton’s essay is interesting and well-argued. However, I have one caveat	to	offer	regarding	his	conclusion:	if	it	is	indeed	true	(as	Hamilton,	following Jaegwon Kim and others, claims) that even hylomorphists and non-reductive physicalists face an interaction problem, then Edwards avoids this problem only if his idealism is a kind of identity theory. That is, to avoid this problem Edwards must take physical properties to be numerically identical to properties that are fundamentally mental. Fur-ther, the problem would be avoided in exactly the same way by a physi-calist identity theory. Physicalist identity theories face a variety of other well-known problems. Idealist identity theories have not yet been widely studied. The plausiblity of such a view (as compared to non-reductive forms	of	idealism	that	might	be	developed)	is	a	question	that	merits	fur-ther investigation.Cortez’s contribution is entitled “Idealism and the Resurrection.” Cortez’s problem is this: Christian (and, more broadly, Abrahamic) Faith and Philosophy368eschatology	has	traditionally	attached	quite	a	lot	of	importance	to	the	doc-trine that there will be a bodily resurrection of the dead. Now, as Cortez notes, to claim that idealism is inconsistent with bodily resurrection is sim-ply to misunderstand idealism: although idealism denies the existence of matter, it does not deny the existence of body. The more worrying issue is whether idealism might undermine the importance of bodily resurrection: given	 idealism,	why	 should	 it	matter	whether	we	 spend	 eternity	 in	 an	embodied	or	disembodied	state?	How	could	disembodiment	be	bad	for	us,	if	disembodiment	is	merely	the	lack	of	certain	kinds	of	ideas?Cortez argues that Edwards has an answer to this concern. Edwards distinguishes between the spiritual vision of God, which is immediate, and the bodily vision of God, which is mediated by God’s creation (135). It is appropriate to our nature to enjoy both types of vision of God, which dif-fer	from	one	another	qualitatively:	that	is,	both	to	apprehend	God	directly	in	 the	beatific	vision,	and	to	apprehend	God	mediately	by	appreciating	the beauty of God’s creation. Disembodiment is bad for us insofar as it de-prives us of the second type of vision. This deprivation can be understood in unproblematic idealist terms.Crisp’s essay, “Jonathan Edwards, Idealism, and Christology,” is one of the two previously published essays, having appeared in another col-lection in 2011. Crisp provides an admirably clear summary of Edwards’s metaphysics and its relation to orthodox Christology. Crisp’s central point is this: Edwards has an exotic metaphysics of the human person, but or-thodox	Christology	does	 not	 really	 require	 a	 particular	metaphysics	 of	the	human	person.	Rather,	it	requires	that	Christ	be	“perfect	in	humanity	. . . consubstantial with us as regards his humanity; like us in all respects, except for sin” (The Chalcedonian Definition,	 as	quoted	by	Crisp	on	158).	The fact that Edwards has an unusual view about what a human being is does not prevent him from holding that Christ became a human being like other human beings.The general strategy Crisp employs here is employed explicitly by Berkeley in the Three Dialogues, and is also employed by some of the other contributors to this volume (especially Keith Yandell): insofar as Christian doctrines are employing ordinary notions of human, body, will, etc., and not	specific	metaphysical	theories,	the	adoption	of	an	exotic	meta	physics	does not create theological problems, provided those ordinary notions can be recovered within the exotic metaphysics. Of course, this generates a need for further metaphysical work to show that those ordinary notions can indeed be recovered, but this has been addressed extensively by both Berkeley and Edwards.I	 turn	finally	 to	Arcadi’s	 contribution,	 “Idealism	and	Participating	 in	the Body of Christ.” This essay provides an admirably clear and carefully argued treatment of an issue that was once at the forefront of Christian theological	disputes	but	has	received	little	attention	in	recent	philosophy	of religion: the metaphysics of the Eucharist.BOOK REVIEWS 369Arcadi begins with a summary of idealism (based, this time, on Berkeley rather than Edwards) and a helpful survey of theological positions on the metaphysics of the Eucharist. Unlike most of the other contributors (who appear to belong mainly to the Reformed tradition), Arcadi is a high church Anglican. He is therefore interested in the consistency of idealism with the corporeal presence of Christ in the Eucharist. (Arcadi prefers “cor-poreal presence” over the more common term “real presence” on grounds that Calvinist “pneumatic presence” theologians might want to insist that pneumatic presence is a kind of real presence, though they would agree that it is not a kind of corporeal	presence.)	Arcadi	identifies	three	theories	of	corporeal presence: transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and impanation. He	helpfully	defines	each	of	these	terms	without	recourse	to	Aristotelian	metaphysical jargon. According to Arcadi, transubstantiation and consub-stantiation do not rely on a complete Aristotelian meta physical framework. However, they do both rely on a distinction between an object and its sen-sible	qualities,	since	they	both	hold	that	in	the	Eucharist	the	body	of	Christ	comes	 to	 be	 present	 although	 its	 sensible	 qualities	 are	 not	 present.	 The	rejection	of	the	distinction	between	the	object	itself	and	the	sensible	quali-ties it possesses is a core element of Berkeleian idealism. The idealist must therefore reject both transubstantiation and consubstantiation.The	case	is	different,	Arcadi	argues,	with	impanation.	Arcadi	explains	that he uses this term “to refer to any explication of the metaphysics of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist that uses the metaphysics of the Incar-nation as an explanatory motif” (202). Idealism, as Arcadi understands it, posits a sort of “ownership relation” that a mind can bear to certain sensible	qualities	whereby	the	mind	counts	as	being	embodied	in	those	sensible	qualities.	Thus	the	idealist	impanation	theory	would	hold	that	the sensible qualities of the bread become the sensible qualities of the body of Christ, or that Christ comes to be embodied in bread. This, Arcadi argues, pro-vides an account of corporeal presence fully consistent with idealism.Arcadi’s	account	leaves	a	lingering	question:	what	is	the	exact	nature	of	the	ownership	relation?	For	instance,	does	Christ’s	being	embodied	in	the	bread	 require	 that	Christ	 feel	pain	when	 the	worshipper	 chews	 the	bread?	Like	many	other	 essays	 in	 this	 volume,	 this	 one	 indicates	 some	places where metaphysical idealism stands in need of further develop-ment, and where such development may perhaps turn out to have theo-logical implications.The theme of idealist theologies of the body, on which I have focused here, is only one of several interesting threads running through this vol-ume. For instance, other essays discuss creation (Spiegel, Wessling, and Yandell), God’s presence in the world (Wainwright), and theological ethics (Airaksinen). In addition to the four essays outlined above, two others are relevant to the theology of the body: Joshua Farris’s article on the imago dei doctrine and Seng-Kong Tan’s article on the Incarnation. On the whole, this is an interesting and thought-provoking volume that is a welcome contri-bution to the literature on metaphysical idealism and on analytic theology.

Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton, eds., IDEALISM AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

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Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton, eds., IDEALISM AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

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