Are We Bodies or Souls? - The Essence of a Human

| Photo Courtesy of Abby Roth

The King’s College hosted Dr. Richard Swinburne, Oxford Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, for a lecture titled “Are We Bodies or Souls?” on Wednesday, Oct. 12. Swinburne discussed the complexities of the body and soul and gave his answer to the age-old question of what makes a person a person. Much of his discourse and rationale was presented from his book Are We Bodies Or Souls, in which he discusses the idea in a lengthier format.

Swinburne began by stating, “I am going to talk to you about the nature of human beings, whether we are just bodies or whether we are souls and bodies, or if we are both, which is the essential part of us that makes us what we are… As Plato and Descartes claim, humans are essentially souls. We do, of course have bodies, and they are vital for our well-being. But what makes us who we are is that each of us have, I claim, an individual soul.”

Swinburne presented a series of arguments enlisting upon the theory of personal identity, which he defined as “the theory of what makes one person, person two at the at a later time the same person as person one at an earlier time.” 

He gave a hypothetical example to fully understand the complexities of the situation: “What makes George, accused in 2020 of having committed a murder in 1960, the same person as a person called George in 1960 who committed a murder?” Swinburne sought to understand how an individual is still the same individual regardless of present circumstances or past experiences.

Swinburne introduced three prevalent theories of thought about personal identity.“Physical theories, which analyze being the same person as having (all or some of) the same body or brain; mental theories, which analyze being the same person as having many largely true memories and a similar character; or mixed theories, which contain elements of both physical and mental theories.” 

These theories have been known to be the most prevalent thought movements in personal identity theory and required Swinburne to extrapolate on each one to further boost his alternate solution.

He responded to each main theory with a set of propositions. He also addressed physical  theories, which mainly rely on the brain as the source of personal identities by using the hypothetical situation of a person named Alexsandra, who possesses the left hemisphere of a person named Alex and the right hemisphere of a person named Sandra. 

Swinburne clarified the situation by using the framework of the soul. “Given that with the same physical parts, physical and mental properties, and history, Alex could be either Alexsandra or not-Alexsandra,” said Swinburne. “Alex must have an indivisible non-physical part, a soul, which makes her who she is.”

After addressing the alternative theories, Swinburne concluded his argument by referring back to personal identity theory with the given framework. 

“I conclude that if there is a person two who has person one’s soul, then person two is person one. And if person two does not have person one’s soul, then person two is not person one,” said Swinburne, using this framework to answer difficult scenarios such as the cases of Alexsandra and George.

Swinburne then argued that this conclusion is necessary to fully make sense of the Resurrection. He gave a scenario in which people are resurrected in the end times.“We are resurrected with our bodies and our soul can be given a new body as part of the resurrection, but if there are no continuing selves to be given a new body, there can be no resurrection, so that is my conclusion,” said Swinburne. “[Souls] are what we are made of. That is why it is possible to live again after our death.”

 A Q&A session followed after the lecture. 

“Where [is] the dividing line… between where the soul starts and where the mind starts?” asked Sean Ayerst, a senior of the House of Winston Churchill. 

Swinburne responded, “The brain is an entirely physical object in the wide sense that it is a publicly accessible object. That is to say that anyone can find out about my brain much like anyone else can, it’s a public knowledge... Whereas the soul has conscience and awareness. It has thoughts, intentions plans to do this or that, and these are conscious events… There is a division there.”

Colton Taussig is a freshman at The King's College majoring in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. He is an avid film-lover and takes great pride in his home state of Missouri.