Another program powered by the Truth Network. It's Matt Slick live. Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at KARM.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick live.
Francis taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody. Welcome to the show.
Today's date is January 23rd, 2025. And I hope you're going to have a good time listening. We're going to have the plan.
I forgot to mention it. But the plan is to have on a guy we had on before talking about neuroscience, theological neuroscience stuff, which is really an interesting conversation. He's having a little trouble getting in on the phone to the station. So I don't know what's going on, but he should be able to do that. And we'll just give that a go. His doctor, Stan Wallace on neurotheology.
We did that, I don't know, about three or four weeks ago. I think it was it was really interesting. And it was one of those kind of conversations where, are you kidding me?
That can't be true, you know, and for me, it was stuff like that. And so I was working on it, trying to well, there's a lot of things, as you know, but I burned the candle at both ends a lot of times, trying to figure out what things to do and and stuff like that. So anyway, hey, look, if you want to give me a call, the number is 877-207-2276. Hopefully he can get in. So, OK, and I don't know if they're having phone issues right now. I'm going to ask my type it into the thing here.
You can call him. OK, let's see. Let me get. Yeah, I get the number. Here we go.
We can call him and try it that way. Yeah, you know, we're just working this. It was a good interview. It was really good before. And so it should be good again. And I just put the number into the producer's going to give him a call to see if we can get all that going. All right.
Now we tried to get up. So I tried to get clubhouse working and I couldn't get it to work right. I'm probably, probably going to rebuild my computer this weekend. I do it about once a year. It's not hard to do if you know a few tricks. And I used to be computer tech. So, you know, you just download a file. You do this, you do that, you restart, you blah, blah, blah. And it reloads the system and then you just update.
So it sounds easy when I say it. But at any rate, so I'll probably end up doing that this weekend. Because, you know, the system, your computer will just get a little buggy after a while. And for those of you who have a system that's going, yeah, just a little buggy. You know, it works, but just you notice a few things. Then you can do what's called a restoration on your computer too.
You can talk to your local tech guy about that and see. So, hey, he's on. He's on. Let's get on with him right now. And let's get on with Stan. Dr. Stan Wallace, are you there? I am. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Sorry about the mix up there.
But hey, you know, it happens. No problem. Am I coming through loud and clear?
Yes, you are. You sound good. OK, perfect.
Perfect. So we had a really good conversation the last time. I really enjoyed it.
Well, we sure did. And neurotheology and you know, I could talk about it because I learned it from you, but hey, you're the man. So why don't you tell us what it is? We'll get into more of the conversation and we'll just get going again. You know? Well, well, sure.
Sure. So, yeah, just to summarize what we talked about. There's a growing group of Christians who are advancing this idea of neurotheology. They call it the science of spiritual maturity.
And it really just just assumes our brain and not our soul is where our beliefs are and our choices, our our character and even our very selves. And I critique in my book, two very popular proponents, Jim Wilder and Kirk Thompson. You know, they're men who I don't have I think have any impure motives.
They want to serve the kingdom. They give very good pastoral advice in their books. But just a horrible theology of what we are. They're essentially Christian physicalists saying things like, for instance, Wilder says it's brain functions that determine our character and even our our human identity.
And Thompson himself says the left hemisphere of the brain sets me apart as me. So those are things that historically and biblical understandings of who we are, what we are, have been functions of the soul. So I think it's a really, really damaging theology and has wide ranging implications.
And so, though, I appreciate their pastoral intent and some of the good practical advice they have, which which is ultimately soul care. When they turn around and round it in the brain, it leads to all type of problems that that I'm trying to point out. Well, I might have to write an article on it and I'll do some research.
I'll do some research, some more, and get your books and stuff like that and go through it. But it seems to me, for my simplistic autistic mind, for me, it just breaks down pretty simply that it's, you know, you already said physicalism, which is property dualism. And this hesitates. Well, it might be. There's two forms. There's two forms.
They might just break in. They might be pure physicalist where there are no other properties, but but physical properties, because they're reductive or physicalist per se. They might be property dualist where ultimately the physical thing, the brain is the is the source of everything, but it does have these immaterial properties that emote from it, such as thoughts or beliefs in the same way that that smoke is produced by fire. But it it's ultimately dependent on fire for its existence. So, yeah, so they may be property dualist kind of smoke fire idea, but a lot of what they write is a pretty full blown, pure or simple physicalist, reductive idea of all you are is your brain. OK. Yeah, that I just got to say it that that's heresy.
It's really seriously bad, theologically speaking. But we get to that a little bit. Well, you know, now I'm curious. I'm taking notes.
I'm going to take notes from you because I'm going to learn as we're talking. And you're the expert. Maybe I'll even call you.
You know, when we have time privately, I can just ask a lot of questions and stuff, but maybe not. Who knows? Because can I can I can I say just for the record, I'm a translator, not the expert. There are Christian scholars that have been called to study this issue at a very high academic level, including my mentor, J.P. Moreland. And they're doing they're the experts. But I'm trying to take what they've written and translate it to the broader, thoughtful Christian community, whether it's pastors or Christian counselors or just just lay persons who want to understand better what we are and how we flourish. So I see myself much more the translator than an expert in this. But I've got to do my homework to get right with these these folks are saying. All right. OK, so now I'm just going to ask a question.
I'm going to ask you stuff. OK, you can teach me here because I want to make sure I'm understanding it properly. So we have two major ideas working that the soul mind soul slash mind is a different substance than the physical or it's the same substance. And that's the same as property dualism. I understand it to be that the physical that brain produces the the mind slash soul. And so that when the physical brain ceases, it ceases. And is that largely what they're saying? Oh, absolutely. In fact, Thompson himself says in his book, the anatomy of the soul, the mind is housed in your physical self and depends on your body to function.
And so, quote, no body, no mind. Wow. Yeah, that is that is heretical. I'm sorry, but it is.
I have to say it. Yeah, that's bad. At least a lot of other heretical views in terms of the person and work of Christ and so on and so forth, which we also talked about. Right.
Yeah. And also, if there's a problem with property dualism in that it's self refuting, because if the physical brain produces the mind, then the mind is nothing more than chemical reactions, neurochemical reactions. And if that's the case, then the the physical brain is restricted by the laws of chemistry, neurochemistry. And so it can only operate within the parameter, which means GIGO, garbage in, garbage out, that whatever you say, your senses cause certain reactions in the brain. It's just necessary reactions, not truth values. You're determined to think what you think.
Yeah, it's purely deterministic. Right. And so it's self refuting because then you can't know if your view on property dualism is true because it's just chemical reactions making you say it. Exactly. And you can't argue others should adopt your view because they can see the truth of the position and therefore believe it to be true as well.
All that goes out if it's all determined. OK, now, of course, for the listeners, why this is so heretical and it's seriously bad is because it would then mean that, hold on, excuse me, that Jesus, who has two distinct natures, I know you know this, but this is for listeners. Jesus has two natures, a divine nature and a human nature. And so Jesus came into existence two thousand years ago. What we mean by that is that the union of the divine and the human nature occurred two thousand years ago. And the properties of both of those natures are what make up the person of Jesus.
And we call that the communication of the properties. And so these are critical doctrines that are really important in Christianity, the hypostatic union and what's called the communicatio idiomatum. So Jesus, by definition, he still has that state of the union of the divine and the human nature. And that's a necessary doctrine. Anybody denies that.
Well, we could talk politely about that. So the property dualism position would then say this is what's radical folks would then say that when Jesus died, the physical brain ceased to function and therefore that soul mind of the human nature ceased. And that would break who Jesus was.
He would no longer be the person of Christ. And that invalidates the atoning sacrifice and the resurrection as well as the issue of continuity. So that's them.
Do you have any comments you want to add about that? No, that's exactly right. You have really unpacked it well in terms of the doctrine of the person of Christ. But the doctrine of the work of Christ, as you touched on, is also in play there, because if he did not actually share a human nature just like us, he couldn't be an equal substitute for us. And if you hold a either pure physicalist or a property dualist, also known as non reductive physicalist view, you you don't have natures. You don't have essences that make you what you are. You have a material substance, namely matter in motion that has certain relations. And that's what you are. And so you don't have continuity through time because that's always changing. You don't have anything that is like other people because there is truly is nothing shared among persons.
So you lose all of those underlying necessary commitments that are deeply biblical that undergird the doctrine of the atonement. Very good. I'm liking you more and more. You're good. Well, it's true. So there's a doctrine.
I'm trying to remember what it is. There's a heresy, Apollinarianism, maybe it's what it is, where the divine nature overshadows the human nature to such an extent that it's functionally, the human nature has functionally nothing really going on. And this would be related to that. Yeah.
So again, this is really bad. And let me ask you, would you would you qualify this? I'm going to ask you two questions. We got a break here in about a minute or less. Would you say it's heresy to say this? Oh, there's the music. OK, hold on.
Get back after the break. And then we'll get. I'm going to ask, is it heresy?
And then is it damnable heresy? OK, those are two questions I want to ask you afterwards. See what you think. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. I want you to, if you would, please stay tuned. This is a really good conversation. I love having conversations with guys like this who are smart, educated and can articulate it with the right back. It's Matt Slick live. Taking your calls at 877-207-2276.
Here's Matt Slick. All right, welcome back to the show. We're on the air with Stan Wallace. I'm having a great time. Really, I loved it. Love talking about stuff like this.
It shows my geekiness coming out, but I really enjoy it. Stan, are you still there? I'm here.
All right. So I've got the book open, Physics of God, on Kindle. Your book. And I'm going to be going through them.
I'm going to write an article on this. Maybe I'll run it by you. Give it the imprimatur and then you'll have stats. You know, if you say it's, you know, way that it's good. OK, so I asked two questions.
We both have a grade. It's heretical. Now, you'd ask me if it was heretical. You'd ask me.
I hadn't answered. OK, go ahead. Yeah, let me let me let me offer maybe a little bit of a nuanced answer. So first of all, heresy is a really, really important word and carries a lot of freight. So it really needs to be used in very rare situations. I think a lot of conversations have been shut down by people invoking heresy.
And then, you know, there's no more no more engagement on the issue. And so, you know, first, it's important to get clear on what a heresy is. So heresy is is a view that clearly denies or contradicts a core biblical doctrine that that that has to do with with with the key themes of scripture, the nature of God, his triune nature and the incarnation, the second person, the Trinity, the nature of salvation, so on and so forth. OK, so that's what it is. And those those core doctrines are encapsulated in the historic creed of the church.
So it's easy to see what what it is that historically has been seen as core. And therefore, what would be heretical to deny those things? So I would say with that definition and want to be careful that certainly a number of implications of Christian physicalism, which is what we're talking about here, a number of implications are heretical. You mentioned one in terms of implications and in relationship to Christology, to the person of Christ is the second person, the Trinity incarnate. It has implications that deny, again, his his human nature and therefore the work he did on the cross. It is implications for the nature of the gospel and human salvation. So a number of implications in soteriology that are heretical. It is implications in eschatology that I believe are heretical, namely our our ability to continue after our death as the same person into the final resurrection and and forevermore. So there are clearly implications that are heretical. Now, the question is, does physicalism itself, even though it entails those things, does it also count as heretical? I stopped short of that because I think there are a lot of physicalists and I think the two gentlemen I critique are examples who, even though they're Christian physicalists, they don't they are not consistent.
And therefore, they don't take that step of drawing out to its logical conclusions like we're doing here, the implications and these other doctrines. So I think it's extremely heterodox. It may be heretical, but I want to be careful with that. So I just want to at least say it's way, way on the far end of orthodoxy, maybe heretical, but at least what it entails or implies is clearly heretical. Yeah, I would take one step further if I put it this way, a strict view of property dualism defined as the mind is dependent upon the physical brain for its actuality, that when the physical brain ceases, the mind ceases. That would be when applied to Christ, that would necessarily destroy the hypostatic union and that would qualify as downable heresy. Absolutely. Again, implications in Christology like that are clearly heretical that follow from a physicalist view of the person. All right. So that's property dualism. Again, I'm reminding people that it means that the physical brain produces the mind slash soul so that when the physical brain ceases, the mind slash soul, and it starts saying mind for now on, ceases to function, ceases to exist.
And then there's the logical issue of continuity, which I know you know this, I don't know if my listeners know this, what continuity is. And the illustration I give is we have a chair that I built in a garage and I had somebody help me build this chair. I have exact plans, exact wood, exact nails, exact screws, exact everything. And then I take that exact chair and I go out and I destroy it, put it in the fire in the backyard, and then I go back into the garage and I build an exact duplicate of that chair.
You couldn't tell the difference between them. The question is, is the second chair the first chair? Not the same as, because it looks and is the same in all aspects, but is it the first chair? The answer is no, because the first chair ceased to exist. So therefore, it's not the second chair, but the second chair is a duplicate. So we have the loss of continuity of existence. And that's the issue here, that if the human soul ceases to exist, then this next soul that exists as an exact duplicate has a logical continuity issue.
This is also a very serious problem. Okay. Yeah. And to anything we talk about here, there are going to be Christian scholars who are physicalists, of which there are many, by the way, who would have counter arguments. And so if you'd like, I could give the counter argument to that and respond to that.
I would love that. All right. So the counter argument is, well, there are two I'll mention. They're related, but but one is no, we don't cease to exist, even though our soul seeks to exist. But God remembers us. And then he recreates us in the final resurrection. So there is no intermediate state.
I think his problems exegetically with that because scripture is clear there is Jesus says to the thief on the cross today, you will be with me in paradise, even though your body won't. But but the argument is, you do cease to be but God remembers you so he can create you and you come to be again. It's it's what folks like Trenton Merrick's called gappy existence. So your existence has gaps where you cease to be and come to be again. But it's still you because God makes it you. And and, you know, my argument and the argument that many would give is, well, you know, that's not what that's not part of the nature of existence, existence, something that can't exist, not exist and come back to be.
In other words, there is no gapping. You know, you exist, you cease to exist. And whatever comes to be later is maybe a really good copy, but it's not you. And as William Hasker says so well, you know, when I die, I don't want to see really good copies of my loved ones.
I want to see them. I mean, I want to be with my dad, not it's a really good copy of him. And I think that's what scripture talks about. It's you that continues through the the the death of your body and the re embodiment in the final resurrection.
You're there all the way through the process. So you're what's called a substantial soul, which is the opposite of this of this property dualism or even reductive physicalism that's being advanced. So, right. Yeah, I thought about that when I've dealt with annihilationists, they hold bearing views that I've had to go through a lot of iterations of thought.
Yeah, I didn't use the term. I like the term, though, a gap gap idea. Now we got another break coming up. I want to follow up on this at the break. But this is really interesting.
It's really important stuff. So hold on. Okay.
Hey, folks. Once again, be right back after these messages with Dr. Stan Wallace. Really enjoying the talk.
Please stay tuned. We're talking with Dr. Stan Wallace. I'm really enjoying the conversation. Stan, are you still there? I'm here. So we're talking about continuity issues. And I forgot where we were, actually.
I was writing my notes. There are so many problems, I mean, with this. Oh, man. Anyway, we'll get into some of the stuff.
So it's definitely heretical. And it's problematic. Now, there are solutions. One of them is the gap existence issue.
What's another one that they have, if you remember? Well, I mean, at the term of ontology, which is what I'm working on, you know, what is essentially to be human, that's really the key is that we cease to be and can be brought back to existence. There are then exegetical arguments that, for instance, a number of scholars will say that the scriptures speak of the person as a unity of soul and body fundamentally or essentially in their nature or their being.
Again, the word ontos is where we get the word being. It's an ontological issues of what are we essentially? And so the argument is, well, if we are essentially a unity or a composite of soul and body or these material and immaterial dimensions, when one ceases to be, the composite ceases to be. And therefore, they would argue exegetically, we can't exist after the death of our body because we are no longer that composite that makes us what we are.
Now, the response is, and even folks like N.T. Wright would argue that we're fundamentally a composite and the problem is that while the Old Testament especially does speak of us as a deep, deep unity, it could be interpreted to be an ontological unity granted or it could be a functional unit. In other words, we function as one. Our soul and body is so deeply united and causally connected that we function as one unified being although there are two distinct realities against soul and body and the soul can live beyond the body. That's a possibility and the way you interpret which view would be best when you come to scriptures that could go either way is by other scripture, scripture interprets scripture and especially given progressive revelation that God reveals more truth as the scriptures unfold, we need to look throughout the Old Testament and into the New Testament to get clears of should we take this biblical data that seems to talk about as one thing to just mean one ontological reality, one thing essentially or just a functional unity. And as you go through the Old Testament, it becomes clearer and clearer as more revelation is given by God that no, we are a duality. We are two things and then you get into the New Testament, it becomes even more clear.
You know Paul says I'd rather be absent from the body and present with the Lord. That's all through the scriptures especially as you get more and more into the New Testament and full revelation that the exegetical argument just doesn't hold up and I will refer and all of the things that I'm saying again are things that are just paraphrasing very, very detailed work that Christian scholars have done and as far as the biblical data and exegesis, the book that is by far the best treatment of this is John Cooper's book, Body, Soul and Life Everlasting where he does a deep dive on all the texts, Old and New Testament that deal with anthropology, what we are and comes out with the view that I advance also in my book, he calls it and I take the title he uses which is Holistic Dualism. We are a duality, soul and body but there's a holism, there's a deep unity though it's a functional unity because we can live apart from our body so it's not an ontological unity. Okay, alright, Body, Soul, Everlasting, John C. Cooper, there it is and I just bought it.
So alright, now I got a question, I got a lot of questions. While we're at it, while we're at it, I'm going to make a little plug for a few other books because I don't want to forget this because your listeners, I can tell by the questions you're asking, if listeners are still with us, they're very thoughtful and they're willing to think about these important issues and might want to read other things so there are three books that deal with the philosophical side of this and that's what I'm doing because I think philosophy can help us understand our anthropology and nuance the biblical anthropology that Cooper helps us to see, okay? And I'll go from the easiest, most accessible, the most accessible is a book called and there's a lot of books, I'm just pulling a few here but Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult by Two Christian Philosophers, J.P. Moreland and Gary DeWeese and it's a nice little chapter, actually a part of a chapter maybe 15 pages on this issue that's really solid so that could be a nice little next step and also give your listeners a book on their shelf that would have so many other things they would benefit from reading. Now the next level up is a book that J.P. Moreland also co-authored with William Lane Craig called Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview and that will have a whole chapter on this, 30, 40 pages and a deeper dive, more technical but written for the non-specialists and important I think for Christians to have on their shelf and pull off, there will be a lot of other issues that you could dive into there. Lastly and again I studied under J.P. Moreland, I think he is doing the best work as a Christian philosopher thinking about these things so I'm going to recommend a book he just came out with with Brandon Rickenbaugh called The Substance of Consciousness and it is a very rigorous, very detailed treatment of this in defense of this holistic dualism that I'm advancing. It is written at an academic level so I'm just giving listeners a heads up that this, if you want to drill down to the deepest level, well not the deepest level but the deepest level that's probably accessible to somebody without a PhD, this is the book that would really help you ground these things at a very sophisticated level. And that's by Rickenbaugh, okay.
Moreland and Rickenbaugh. Okay. All right, well now I got to, I was thinking through this during the break, all right. So the property dualists, they do affirm a physical resurrection, right? Yeah, yeah, they do because you can't get away from that credo. Now if the fallen brain, which has problems with entropy, misfirings, so to speak, all the problems that would be natural to the fallen physical brain, that would not be the case in a glorified resurrected body. So if the resurrected body-brain is different than the original non-resurrected body and brain then doesn't that produce a potential problem that the continuity issue of course is broken and you wouldn't be the same person because you're the product of the physical realm.
The resurrected body, you'd be a new person, make sense? It absolutely does, yeah. And it does create a very severe problem. Actually the problem is much, much worse than that.
Let me unpack it this way. So first of all, what does it mean for two things to be identical? Okay, because we're saying, you know, the physicals would say this physical body-brain before death is identical to, or the same as, same person as this resurrected body. Okay, so it's a claim of identity. Well like in most things, to understand whether a claim is true or accurate, you have to understand what the term means. So what does identity mean? Here's the illustration I use in my book. It's a very, very simple concept.
We use it all the time. Let's say I have a daughter and for her birthday I get her a goldfish and she names him Gil. She's very creative with these naming conventions, right? So she loves Gil and they, you know, they spend hours together. She knows everything about Gil, how he moves, the hue of his gold, you know, scales, everything, right? Well, she goes to school one day and you're walking past her room and you notice Gil's floating on the surface of the water and he, so you promptly give him a burial and you go to the pet store and you get Gil too. You find one that's just like Gil and you get it home just in time for her to arrive home after school. She like every day runs up to her room to say hi to Gil and within 10 seconds she's sobbing.
Now why is that? It's because she recognizes this is not identical to the Gil I left in the morning. There's something just even very slightly different. Maybe it's a little different hue of gold, maybe this Gil II swims in a little different manner. Who knows what, but the point is that it's not identical because it doesn't share all the properties in common with Gil I and that's what identity is. If two things are identical, they're going to share all their properties in common, color, their movement, everything.
And so you can see if two things are not identical just by saying, well, there's one property that's true of this thing that wasn't true of the other thing and that's what she's recognizing. So the question is- There's a break. Hold on. We need to think if we're just- Sorry about that.
We got a break so we'll get back to Gil. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. Sorry about that.
Last break. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. We're talking to Dr. Stan Wallace, having a great conversation, really enjoying it. We'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.
Here's Matt Slick. All right. Everybody, welcome back to the last segment of the show. Stan, are you still there?
I'm here. All right. Okay. So, we're talking about something.
Yeah, let me pick that up. You were making the point that if one ceases to be and the brain is recreated in the resurrected state, it wouldn't be the same brain. I said, that's right. A huge continuity issue there can't be identical because to be identical is to share all properties in common and all of the properties of an earlier brain would be different than a latter brain. Unless God somehow got every single molecule from your earlier brain and stuck it in there, but some of those molecules were part of yours at one time and then they're part of another person's brain and so on and so forth. So, you get kind of any problems there, but it's much worse because the fact of the matter is every seven years in this life, all of the atoms in our body turnover. So, we are literally not, if we're just physical, we are literally not the same person, given the law of identity, I just unpacked, sharing all your properties in common, we aren't the same person seven years from one season to another. And what's worse, you know, wait, wait, wait, that's not all, in fact, every moment we are changing our physical constitution, losing cells, gaining cells, atoms changing in the cells. So, it's a problem what's called unity through time for the physicalist. How do you explain that I am the person who's in those baby pictures and I'm the person who will enjoy my retirement when, if I'm just physical, I wasn't there and I won't be there because this matter wasn't there and won't be there. You got to have something that stands under the changes of the body, a substantial soul that is a substrate, if you will, a substance that endures throughout the life of the person and into the afterlife that isn't identical to or constituted by the physical constituents. Right. Does that make sense?
Oh, yeah, to me it does, absolutely. So I do outlines and on different topics and I do it on science, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Christian theology, Mormonism, blah, blah, blah. I have one on philosophy and it's 104 pages long, okay, so, and I opened it up during a break and went to the issue of identity and in my notes, it's several pages long just on identity for those who realize this is a huge topic. Identity is not something you just solve it in five minutes, we have a discussion, let's move on to the next thing. There's all kinds of issues related to identity, relative identity, personal identity, transitive identity, indiscernibility of identicals, is of identity, is of predication, all these things, I've had to discuss all of these with atheists who want to discuss the issue, the nature of the person of the Trinity, the ontological, is identity, is of predication and we've gone into all this stuff.
And these things are just not easily, they're not, they're just not easily solvable. There's always questions and counterarguments and stuff to this, is about, well, what it means to be a person. Philosophers have been working on this for a long time. I think the solutions found in substance dualism as God created us, then we don't have any problem with that. But that's another topic to get into maybe. Well that's what I'm arguing, a form of substance dualism called a holistic dualism.
Right. And I would also say that, you know, identity, okay, first of all, any view, not only in philosophy and science and other fields, any view has its detractors, so the fact that there's not a hundred percent agreement doesn't get, you know, get something thrown away. It just says, okay, we need to look at the arguments against, see if they're strong enough to overcome the arguments for, and in the case of what identity is, I think that it's very, very strong case and it's common sense. We know what identity is.
It's when two things share all their, all their properties. So and by the way, in my book, I go into a little bit more of this, again, my book is how we lost our minds, neuroscience, neurotheology, the soul and human flourishing. And I did a lot of work to footnote some of the things that I'm saying in my text for people who want to read more on, for instance, the nature of identity and the discussion.
I've got some footnotes that would lead readers into the literature at a deeper level to really start to, to, to unpack it at that level. So all that to say, yeah, this, this view of identity I'm talking about, it's pretty common sensical. Again, our kids use it with their, their fish and it's, it's, it's what you mentioned a minute ago. It's Leibniz's law of the indiscernibility of identicals, that two things are identical. You can't discern them. It's, it's the same thing.
You can't see a distinction. They don't have head coverings on and I belong to a church and we, the preacher goes through verse by verse through the Bible and he doesn't avoid bad things, but I haven't heard him talk about this. So I believe the Bible is inerrant. I believe it says what it says.
You've always said that since I've been listening to you for years. I'm just curious what your thought is in terms of whether women should wear head coverings when they're in service or in prayer. I'm an ex-Catholic, we left the Catholic church about a decade ago and I've been looking, we were looking for churches for a couple of years and if you're hooking your wagon new, you're not tolerating any, anything that's not biblical. But I don't know any church today where women wear head coverings. I realize it's a non-essential and there are essentials and non-essentials, but I'm just curious what your thoughts are on this. It's a difficult one and there are different interpretations to go. And so you're talking about 1 Corinthians 11 and it says in verse 5, but every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head. What does that mean, disgraces her head? We think, or some theologians think, that it deals with the issue of authority, anyway, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved.
So in that context. So I'm not sure if I'm on or not, I'm sorry, okay, so I assume I'm back, we had technical difficulties on your end, I understand, so not sure how much of what I was saying got through but I was making the point that if we don't have identity of molecules in our brain moment to moment, much less over 7 years, it's hard to say we're the same person. And biblically we are the same person, and just intuitively we are.
I know I'm the person in my baby pictures and I'm the person who will retire. There's just a good reason to believe we are a substance as a soul, that some substance that stands under the changes of our body. And in my book, How We Lost Our Minds, neuroscience, neurotheology, the soul and human flourishing, when I talk about this and other issues, I do a lot of work to footnote these conversations so that readers can go deeper into them if they really want to drill into it.
But what we didn't get to in this conversation, and I'll just touch on, is just the very surface of the implications. Because the implications for our growth in Christ and our ministry are huge, and I've got two chapters on this, chapter 9 is what are the implications for how we grow in Christ. And the basic point is that only by understanding our soul can we care for our soul. Because different types of things need different things that help them.
If you renovate a house you need different tools than if you renovate a car. So if we're going to renovate our soul, which is the term that Jim Wilder uses in his book that I'm critiquing, we've really got to know what the soul is. And as we have a better understanding of the nature of the soul, we can understand how different practices and beliefs and communities we're in can help us and nurture our soul in positive ways. And then secondly, there are implications that are wide-ranging in terms of our loving others. My entire last chapter is on this, but just for example, if there is no soul, then evangelism and discipleship and missions have to be redefined, because we're not caring for souls, we're not helping save souls, we're caring for bodies and saving bodies. So we need to rethink all of that.
And Christian physicalists are willing to admit that and say, yeah, let's rethink that and define ministry fully in terms of physical realities. It has implications in biomedical ethics. Issues like abortion and euthanasia and genetic engineering and so on and so forth are all based on their appropriateness or based on what we take a human person to be. And so if we're physicalists, we're going to have a certain set of answers to those questions. You know, life begins when certain functions appear like viability, the ability to live outside the womb or brain activity or some other function.
If we're a soul that has a body, it's going to be very different questions and it gives us reason to think that we come to exist at the time of conception, whether or not we can express all of our abilities through our body as our bodies are developing in the womb and thereafter. So huge implications in abortion, euthanasia on the other side of life, so on and so forth. Implications also in our different fields.
Whatever it is we do in the nine to five is going to be driven by what we think human persons are. I give the example of a physician who is a physicalist is going to come in to see me and look at my chart because the numbers tell him everything. That's all there is to me.
It's just the numbers. If he or she believes I have a soul, then they're going to ask me questions about what's going on inside me and realize it's not just the physical. That certainly is there. I don't want to deny the physical reality and that what's going on could be physical, but let's say it's an ulcer. It could be driven by things going on in my soul that I'm worrying a lot. It could be vice versa.
I could have certain ailments of soul, emotional issues maybe because I'm not getting enough rest. There's a causal connection both ways, but the point is what we take a person to be is going to define how we do our work. I give one example of architecture. I was in Timisoara, Romania a while ago and walking down the main promenade on the left side of the street are these beautiful, beautiful buildings and on the right side are just concrete block, totally boring and drab and even ugly buildings and the left side was built before the communist takeover and the right side was built after the communist takeover and it was a different world view that led the architects to design the buildings. On the left side there's artistry. There's even whimsy because you're more than just a physical being that needs shelter.
You need beauty in your environment and so they designed buildings that were beautiful as opposed to the Soviet era buildings that were not beautiful, but they provided a roof over the head, which if you're a physical being, it's all you need. I actually have eight different professions I use as examples of how your different views of what a human person is influence how you do your work and those are just a starter. It's an example of here's ways to think about this in your profession and how developing a more robust understanding of what it is to be human can then help you in your work love others. Again, tying into Jesus' greatest commandment to love God and love others. Those are some of the things I touch on. Again, there's a lot of folks that I footnote who do a lot more, which is really important, but the book is really just trying to give a 30,000 foot fly by and a big picture of what are we, why we should reject the neuro theologians reduction of us to exclusively or primarily a brain and thirdly, therefore, what are the implications of what we take a person to be in light of how we treat them in our work in our ministry. So thanks for time to share some of that and again, the books, how we lost our, have we lost our minds, it's available on my website, stanwallace.org or on Amazon or other places you would buy a book. So thanks for a little bit of time.
