Can Theists Reject Dualism?

Raymond Rider

Can a theist reject dualism? I do not believe so. I think that theism entails dualism. To clarify, by dualism I mean the view that minds and matter are distinct and that one does not reduce to the other. By mind, I merely mean a locale of consciousness or something with phenomenal experiences. If X has a mind, there is something that is like being an X. We can meaningfully ask, "what is it like to be X?" Having parsed important terms, let's move to the argument. My argument goes like this:

1. On theism, there is a mind that is distinct from matter and does not reduce to matter.
2. Any view in which their are minds that are distinct from matter and that do not reduce to matter entails dualism.
3. Therefore, theism entails dualism. (1, 2)

Premise 1 is evidently true. On theism, God exists and is an immaterial mind. I can think of only two ways to respond to this premise and neither of them seem to work. First, someone might respond that God is material. However, by definition, God is not finite. If God were material, he would be bounded by matter and therefore finite. He could even be composed of a bunch of matter, perhaps the entire universe, but this still means that God is bounded. Therefore, theists cannot say that God is material. Second, someone might say that God is not a mind and God transcends what it means to be a mind. Yet, remember how we are using the term "mind." It merely means a locale of consciousness. While God's mind might transcend our understanding, it does not mean he is not a mind. We can ask, "what is it like to be God;" we might not understand the answer, but there is an answer to the question nonetheless. Thus, premise 1 still stands. Premise 2 practically says, "if a view entails dualism, then it entails dualism." Since dualism is the view that mind and matter are distinct and do not reduce to each other, then any view on which there are minds that are distinct from matter and do not reduce to matter entails dualism. I do not think I need to defend this premise further.

I know that there are physicalist theists out there, such as Peter van Inwagen, but I just do not know how you coherently hold both views. I also do not think you can be a theistic panpsychist, but we can discuss that in the comments. Let me know if you have any objections!

Cuthbert

I think you have hit upon a problem for Christian theology in particular. If God became human (the "Word made Flesh") how can He also be eternal unchanging spirit? Arius in 4th Cent AD argued along the same lines as you. You can't have a physical God because God is spirit. Flesh and spirit are distinct - dualism, as you say. Arius's views on the incarnation were rejected. On the contrary, God can be completely physical and completely spirit at the same time, the human incarnation being eternally begotten of the Father and Of The Same Substance as the Father. It gets very tricky. Of The Same Substance (homoousias) - that means flesh and blood like us, right? So no dualism. But hang on - God is eternal Spirit and distinct from Creation - so dualism. Don't trust this post for complete accuracy but I think there's a connection with Arius's thinking.

Agent Smith

Well, even if it were true that theists can't deny dualism, the converse isn't true i.e. dualists can be atheists. The love isn't reciprocated :broken:

Count Timothy von Icarus

I believe they can. In Behemist views of God, God creates the world as a necissary condition for Its existence. A thing can not be without something that it is not (see: Heraclitus' semiotics of opposites, Hegel's being vs. nothing contradiction = becoming).

God must create the world, and must create differences within the world by which definition and meaning can exist.

This whole problem of meaning without difference is generally not as acute for the realist-Platonist, who sees eternal forms of meaning as eternal, but you do see Platonist systems that embrace forms coming into being as well (see: the Gnostic "birth" of the Aeons from the Monad and Barbelõ, the emanations from Ain Soph in Kabbalah, the progression of the Forms from "the Good.")

In Boehme, Hegel, and others, God evolves and is defined in the immanent world through the processes of reality. For Hegel, the Absolute, as being wholly knowing and experiencing Itself as Its self, comes into being through progressive cycles of reification.

This would be a God made of one substance with the immanent world of being, but it isn't quite pantheism in the traditional sense. Everything is part of God, but God is not contained in each thing. This fully realized God also as an eternal aspect, in that a being with perfect memory and perfect foresight essentially sits outside time, as it can relive any period as it happened, or foresee any future. In Kabbalah, the entire Torah is sometimes seen as the name of God, but some go further, all of reality is simply the name of God, God's definition.

More traditional pantheism also does not need to be dualist.

Various forms of idealism don't need to be dualist either. In these systems perception is not of real objects, but is controlled by God.

EugeneW

Can a theist reject dualism? I do not believe so — Raymond Rider

What if the theist believes God had created matter only? But matter with a special property, namely containing a special ingredient? Is it still matter than? Or is there a dualism then? Matter and what's contained in it? Can't it be a new form of matter?

Bartricks

↪Raymond Rider

What would you call a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent? God, yes? So it is no part of the definition of God that he is immaterial (and you can't find out about reality by mucking about with words and defining things into being).
Note too that even if God is immaterial (and I think he is, not because I've lamely built it into the definition, but rather because our reason represents minds to be immaterial and God is a mind) this does not entail dualism. For a dualistic believes the material exists and it is open to an immaterialist about the mind to deny this and to maintain that the external world is made of mental states.

180 Proof

Can a theist reject dualism? — Raymond Rider

Sure. Bishop Berkeley's idealism is monist.

Tom Storm

↪Raymond Rider

I've met many theists over the years who are idealists. They don't believe in matter. Rather like the good Bish Berkeley, they are monists.

EugeneW

I'm a theist. God created one kind of matter only. Or better, two basic massless matter fields, longing for or fleeing from each other by means of gauge fields. These basics of love and hate lay at the base of all universal life. So matter possesses the divine spark. Two matter field containing the divine spark. That quarticism even! After the gap was closed, there was nothing else to conclude. God is a logical necessity.

This reasoning is heard daily in our asylums. In the panopticon.

lll

This reasoning is heard daily in our asylums. In the panopticon. — EugeneW

Very fun way to end a post.

EugeneW

↪lll

Gmorning 3stripe! Reading that is a fun way to start the day!

Kuro

1. On theism, there is a mind that is distinct from matter and does not reduce to matter.
2. Any view in which their are minds that are distinct from matter and that do not reduce to matter entails dualism.
3. Therefore, theism entails dualism. (1, 2) — Raymond Rider

Premise 2 practically says, "if a view entails dualism, then it entails dualism." Since dualism is the view that mind and matter are distinct and do not reduce to each other, then any view on which there are minds that are distinct from matter and do not reduce to matter entails dualism. I do not think I need to defend this premise further. — Raymond Rider

I just skimmed over your post to these parts and I'll try to very briefly explain to you why you're wrong.

First, ever heard of Berkeley? He's a Christian man and an idealist. He believes in both a mind irreducible to matter and that minds are distinct from matter but he is not a dualist. How come?

Because ontological monism isn't confined to materialism. Idealism, the position that reality is fundamentally mental or that only the mental exists, for instance, would be monist, but also commit that minds are matter-distinct and non-reducible to matter, and still not be dualist.

Other positions are neutral monism, which reduce both mental and material to a single mode of existence that accounts for both. They're not dualists: notice the /monism/ in the name.

Your problem is Premise 2. You have a confused understanding of what dualism is.

I'm fairly surprised that not a single response to your post aside

↪180 Proof

's says this.

Can Theists Reject Dualism?

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