Anthropology

Man’s free will is either determined by another, indetermined, or determined by self. These three options are logically exhaustive. 

Determinism, in both its naturalistic and supernaturalistic forms, is self-defeating. If complete determinism is true, then all who hold to non-deterministic views are determined to do so, and can not be expected to change their views. Further, humans could not be held responsible for their actions if those actions were not the result of their own self-determined free choice. 

Indeterminism, on the other hand, makes for an irrational world by its rejection of the principle of causality. And like determinism, indeterminism illegitimately releases man from his moral responsibility, since his moral actions are ultimately uncaused. 

Self-determinism is the only option left and the correct one. First, to answer a common charge, it should be noted that self-determinism is not the same as self-causation. The latter would indeed be a logical impossibility because a being cannot be the cause of its own being. But there is no contradiction in an action being self-caused. Self-determinism alone explains the moral responsibility that man has before God. While God is the cause of the fact of free will, man is responsible for the acts of free will. This is also true of Lucifer. If Lucifer’s fall was determined by another, then God would be responsible for sin and evil. If Lucifer’s fall was indetermined, then God, a Being of perfect rationality, created an irrational world, which is absurd. The correct view is that Lucifer’s fall was the result of his own free will decision to choose the finite good (himself) over and against the Infinite Good (God). God gave to angels and humans the good of self-deterministic free will. As free moral creatures, angels and humans are responsible for what is done with that free will. 

At least five reasons can be given in defense of the view that the body and soul, and not just the soul alone, is created in the image of God. First, as discussed in question 2, the mind and body, while not an identity, are a unity. The human person is not complete without a body. Second, God created matter and everything God created is good, reflecting His glory (Gen. 1:31; 1 Tim. 4:4). Third, murder of the body is wrong because it is a crime against the image of God (Gen. 9:6). Fourth, the Incarnate Christ is called the “image of God” (Heb. 1:3; 2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15). Fifth, the ultimate glorification of man, which includes the resurrection of the body, reveals that the body is as much the image of God as the soul (Rom. 8:22-25).

But does the view that the body is part of the image of God imply that God has a body? The answer is negative for several reasons. First, solid metaphysical thinking teaches that an infinite, simple, eternal Being must be immaterial. Second, Scripture teaches that God is a Spirit (John 4:4; 2 Cor. 3:17). Third, Scriptural references to God’s “body parts” must be considered anthropomorphic. Otherwise, God would not only resemble a man, but also a bird! (Ps. 91:4) Fourth, if God had a body, then all creatures with bodies would in some way be created in His image. Yet, that is obviously not the case. Instead, man’s body differs from the bodies of all other creatures in that it is specifically created, in unity with the soul, that man might reflect the glory of God. Man, as a soul/body unity, is uniquely qualified above all other creatures to both worship God in the spiritual realm and exercise dominion over His creation in the physical realm. 

Of the many soul/body views, three can be considered to be within the pale of Christian orthodoxy, though only one succeeds as an adequate explanation of the biblical data and sound philosophical reasoning.

First, the view of Pre-Established Harmony, promoted by Leibniz, teaches that the mind and body are two different substances that are synchronized by God to work in relation to one another.

Second, Augustine taught the view of Occasionalism, which sees the soul and the body as two different things that are coordinated by God so that ideas arise in the mind on the occasion of sense perception.  

Third, the Hylomorphic view of Aquinas, which best explains the biblical data, teaches that the soul and body are a holistic unity, with the mind animating the body. The first two views say that man is a soul and only has a body and, therefore, have to concoct elaborate explanations for how the soul and body could ever interact. Hylomorphism, however, teaches that the soul is the form of the body and a human person is not complete without one or the other. The soul and body are a unity, however, and not an identity: the soul is to the body as thoughts are to the words on paper. Hylomorphism is consistent with the Traducian view of the origin of the soul and best explains the universal experience that the soul and body intimately affect one another, as in emotional grief and physical pain. Furthermore, only Hylomorphism can adequately explain why the murder of the body is a crime against the image of God in man (Gen. 9:6). Also, the Christian doctrine of the resurrection is inexplicable if man is complete without a body (2 Cor. 5:1-4). Indeed, the word “soul” means “person” and often includes the body (Ps. 16:10).