In my previous post, I argued that by rejecting the soul, McLaren, Pagitt, Bell, and Jones lack a basis for our being able to be the same person who can grow and develop over time. This has several implications.
First, our being able to tell a narrative about one’s life presupposes that that person remains literally the identical person through those changes. Yet, I also argued that without an essence (which is the soul), we are identical to just a set (or bundle) of qualities at a given time. If the set changes in membership from one time to the next, then those two sets are not identical. So, suppose I grow in my interpersonal relationships. Then the set of qualities that constitutes me at the time beforehand will not be identical to the set when those qualities have been developed. In that case, I will have ceased to exist, and a new person will have taken my place. Yet, if so, then I cannot grow in relationships, much less virtues or anything else.
Second, we will not be able to be morally responsible for our actions. Suppose an employer treats an employee unjustly (say, by using sexually harassing remarks). Upon the employee’s making a report, an investigation is launched. Yet, during this time, the employer has changed in some way; e.g., that person has been diagnosed with a disease. If we are nothing but the set of all our properties at a given time, then if there is a change in the members of the set, the new set is literally not the same as the former one. Thus, the person who harassed the other is no longer the same person. If so, it would seem to be immoral to hold that new person accountable for another’s actions.
Third, consider the prospects for our resurrection from the dead and eternal life. Clearly, our resurrection depends upon Jesus’ own resurrection. Now, as evangelicals hold, Jesus was fully God and fully human. Yet, on these emergents’ views, being fully human means ontologically we are just physical beings. If so, then did Jesus survive His own death as a human? (For surely as God, He cannot die.)
It seems not, for Jesus’ own resurrected body had different qualities than His body before death. (For one, after His resurrection, He could pass through solid walls.) But, this means that Jesus’ identity as a man did not remain the same through these important changes. If this is so, then it seems that Jesus did not survive His own death, but a different human replaced Him.
That result would be disastrous for Christians. If Jesus did not survive His own death, then surely we will not either. Moreover, death wins after all.
But, let’s waive that concern for the sake of another argument. Suppose we are resurrected somehow on this view. According to McLaren and others, God will re-member us at the resurrection: “All the momentary members of our life story … will be re-membered, reunited, in God’s memory.”[1]Though our bodies will be different, God will remember our stories, and He will reunite our bodies with our stories.
Can this move alleviate the problem at hand? I don’t think so; for, what is a story? For it to be the basis for our being the same person through change, it needs to remain essentially the same through time and change. For one narrative to be identical to another, they have to have all their parts in common. Yet, biographical stories keep changing throughout a person’s life. So, an appeal to one’s story will not solve this problem of maintaining one’s personal identity and surviving death.
This result comes
from their rejection of an essence to human beings, about whom a story can be
told. But our identity does not depend upon one’s narrative; rather, one’s
narrative trades upon the deeper reality of the identity of the person, which
is due to his or her essence (i.e., the soul).
[1] Brian McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves In (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 153.