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A conceptualist argument for a spiritual substantial soul

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2012

J. P. MORELAND
J. P. MORELAND*
Affiliation:
Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, 13800 Biola Avenue, La Mirada, California 90369, USA e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

I advance a type of conceptualist argument for substance dualism – minimally, the view that we are spiritual substances that have bodies – based on the understandability of what it would be for something to be a spirit, e.g. what it would be for God to be a spirit. After presenting the argument formally, I clarify and defend its various premises with a special focus on what I take to be the most controversial one, namely, if thinking (i.e. conscious) matter is metaphysically possible, it is not the case that we have a distinct positive concept of God's being a divine spirit.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 35 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

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