Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T12:04:38.087Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The incarnation, soul-free: physicalism, kind membership, and the incarnation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2015

KEVIN W. SHARPE*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, St Cloud State University, 720 Fourth Avenue S., St Cloud, MN 56301, USA

Abstract

Animalists, those who hold that human persons are identical to human animals, seem committed to holding that, in becoming incarnate, the Son of God became a human animal. Unsurprisingly, a number of philosophers have argued that this is impossible. In this article, I consider several objections to an animalist account of the incarnation based on kind membership, viz. objections drawing on kind essentialism, constitution essentialism, and the persistence conditions of animals. After developing each objection in detail, I respond by drawing on my preferred formulation of animalism. My goal in addressing these objections is to take the first steps toward demonstrating the compatibility of animalism and the incarnation.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baker, Lynn Rudder (2000) Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Burke, Michael (1994) ‘Preserving the principle of one object to a place: a novel theory of the relations among objects, sorts, sortals and persistence conditions’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 54, 591624.Google Scholar
Crisp, Oliver (2009) God Incarnate (London: T&T Clark International).Google Scholar
Hill, Jonathon (2011) ‘Introduction’, in Marmodoro, Anna & Hill, Jonathon (eds) The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 119.Google Scholar
Leftow, Brian (2011) ‘The humanity of God’, in Marmodoro, Anna & Hill, Jonathon (eds) The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2044.Google Scholar
Locke, John (1996) An Essay on Human Understanding, (ed., abridged) Winkler, Kenneth (Indianapolis IN: Hackett Publishing Company).Google Scholar
Marmodoro, Anna (2011) ‘The metaphysics of the extended mind in ontological entanglements’, in Marmodoro, Anna & Hill, Jonathon (eds) The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 205227.Google Scholar
Merricks, Trenton (2007) ‘The Word made flesh: dualism, physicalism, and the incarnation’, in van Inwagen, Peter & Zimmerman, Dean (eds) Persons: Human and Divine (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 281300.Google Scholar
Olson, Eric (1997) The Human Animal: Personal Identity without Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Olson, Eric (2007) On What We Are: An Essay in Personal Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin (1999) ‘On heresy, mind, and truth’, Faith and Philosophy, 16, 182193.Google Scholar
Rea, Michael (2000) ‘Constitution and kind membership’, Philosophical Studies, 97, 169193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharpe, Kevin (2015) ‘Animalism and person essentialism’, Metaphysica, 16, 5372.Google Scholar
van Horn, Luke (2010) ‘Merricks's soulless saviour’, Faith and Philosophy, 27, 330341.Google Scholar
van Inwagen, Peter (1990) Material Beings (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar