Appendix B
The following bibliography gathers the most important works for the argument of this book. It includes major studies on substance dualism, Christian physicalism, conditional immortality, the intermediate state, near-death experiences, and the philosophy of mind. Every work listed here has shaped either the positive case for substance dualism within conditional immortality or the physicalist position that this book critiques. The entries are organized by category to help readers find further reading in the area that interests them most. All entries are formatted in Turabian (Chicago) bibliographic style.
Cooper, John W. Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.
This is the single most important scholarly defense of biblical substance dualism written in the last fifty years. Cooper walks through the Old Testament, the intertestamental literature, the New Testament, and the theological tradition, showing that Scripture consistently teaches a holistic dualism in which the soul can exist apart from the body between death and resurrection. Every chapter of More Than Dust draws on this work. If you read only one book from this bibliography, make it this one.
Cooper, John W. “The Bible and the Body-Soul Question.” In Christian Physicalism? Philosophical Theological Criticisms, edited by R. Keith Loftin and Joshua R. Farris, chap. 16. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018.
Cooper provides an extended response to physicalist readings of 2 Corinthians 5:1–8, Philippians 1:21–24, and other intermediate-state texts. He demonstrates that the physicalist reinterpretations of these passages are forced and unpersuasive. This chapter represents Cooper’s most concentrated critique of Christian physicalism’s handling of the biblical evidence.
Farris, Joshua R. An Introduction to Theological Anthropology: Humans, Both Creaturely and Divine. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020.
Farris provides a thorough survey of theological anthropology from a substance dualist perspective. He argues that the soul, understood as an immaterial substance created by God, is essential for grounding the image of God, personal identity, and the intermediate state. The book interacts carefully with both historical theology and contemporary philosophy of mind.
Farris, Joshua R. The Soul of Theological Anthropology: A Cartesian Exploration. Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies. London: Routledge, 2017.
Farris argues for a pure body-soul dualism (PBSD) in which the person is identified with the soul rather than with the body-soul composite. He engages Cooper, Moreland, Swinburne, and the major physicalist alternatives, arguing that PBSD provides the most natural reading of the biblical texts on the intermediate state. This is one of the most philosophically rigorous defenses of a strong dualist position in recent theology.
Goetz, Stewart, and Charles Taliaferro. A Brief History of the Soul. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
An accessible historical survey tracing the concept of the soul from ancient philosophy through the church fathers, the medieval period, and into modern thought. Goetz and Taliaferro show that substance dualism has deep roots in both the philosophical and theological traditions and that its recent decline is not the result of decisive refutation but of shifting philosophical fashions.
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.
Grudem’s widely used evangelical systematic theology defends a dichotomist view of human nature in which the person is composed of body and soul (or spirit). His chapters on the nature of humanity and the intermediate state present a clear, accessible case for substance dualism from within the Reformed evangelical tradition. This work represents the mainstream evangelical position on anthropology.
Gundry, Robert H. Sōma in Biblical Theology: With Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Gundry argues that Paul’s use of sōma (body) refers specifically to the physical body rather than to the whole person, directly challenging the holistic monist readings of Rudolf Bultmann and others. This is a landmark work of New Testament scholarship that supports the dualist reading of Paul’s anthropology. Gundry’s exegesis is meticulous, and his conclusions have never been adequately refuted by the physicalist side.
Cortez, Marc. Embodied Souls, Ensouled Bodies: An Exercise in Christological Anthropology and Its Significance for the Mind/Body Debate. London: T&T Clark, 2008.
Cortez argues that christological considerations—particularly the person of Christ as fully divine and fully human—provide important constraints for the mind-body debate. He shows that the christological tradition presupposes a view of human nature in which body and soul are distinct but united, and that this has direct implications for how we understand personhood and the intermediate state.
Moreland, J. P. The Soul: How We Know It’s Real and Why It Matters. Chicago: Moody, 2014.
Moreland presents the philosophical case for substance dualism in accessible, popular-level prose. He covers the modal argument, the argument from consciousness, the problem of personal identity, and the implications for Christian theology. This is the best introductory-level book on the philosophy of substance dualism for a general Christian audience and is referenced throughout More Than Dust.
Moreland, J. P., and Scott B. Rae. Body & Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000.
Moreland and Rae provide a detailed philosophical and theological defense of substance dualism and apply it to contemporary ethical issues including abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and human dignity. The book argues that a robust understanding of the soul as an immaterial substance is necessary for grounding human rights and moral responsibility. Their treatment of personal identity is especially valuable.
Rickabaugh, Brandon, and J. P. Moreland. The Substance of Consciousness: A Comprehensive Defense of Contemporary Substance Dualism. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2023.
This is the most comprehensive philosophical defense of substance dualism available today. Rickabaugh and Moreland address every major objection to substance dualism—the interaction problem, the pairing problem, neural dependence, and more—while building a powerful positive case from the unity of consciousness, the modal argument, and the nature of qualia. This work is essential reading for anyone who wants to engage the current state of the debate at a technical level.
Swinburne, Richard. The Evolution of the Soul. Rev. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Swinburne argues for substance dualism on the basis of personal identity, free will, and the irreducibility of mental properties to physical properties. His treatment of the soul’s relationship to the body is careful, rigorous, and deeply influential. This is one of the most important works in the modern philosophical defense of dualism.
Swinburne, Richard. Are We Bodies or Souls? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Swinburne’s most recent and accessible case for substance dualism. He argues that personal identity cannot be grounded in physical continuity alone and that the existence of the soul is the best explanation for the unity and continuity of conscious experience. This book distills decades of Swinburne’s work into a focused argument that engages the latest physicalist literature.
Swinburne, Richard. Mind, Brain, and Free Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Swinburne provides a sustained argument that mental events are not identical to brain events and that substance dualism is the best account of human freedom. He addresses the relationship between neuroscience and philosophy of mind, arguing that the explanatory gap between physical brain states and conscious experience points decisively toward dualism.
Loose, Jonathan J., Angus J. L. Menuge, and J. P. Moreland, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2018.
A comprehensive reference volume containing essays by leading philosophers on every major aspect of the substance dualism debate. Topics include the modal argument, the interaction problem, neuroscience, personal identity, the problem of other minds, and the theological implications of dualism. This is the most complete single-volume resource for the current state of the philosophical discussion.
Taliaferro, Charles. Consciousness and the Mind of God. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Taliaferro defends an integrative dualism in dialogue with both theism and contemporary philosophy of mind. He argues that consciousness is best explained within a theistic framework in which the soul is a genuine immaterial substance sustained by God. The book engages physicalist alternatives with rigor and charity.
Foster, John. The Immaterial Self: A Defence of the Cartesian Dualist Conception of the Mind. London: Routledge, 1991.
Foster mounts a rigorous philosophical defense of Cartesian dualism, arguing that the self is a non-physical substance that cannot be reduced to or identified with the body. While he ultimately moves toward a form of idealism, his arguments against physicalism and for the immateriality of the mind remain among the strongest in the literature.
Hasker, William. The Emergent Self. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.
Hasker defends emergent dualism, the view that the soul emerges from but is not reducible to the physical brain. While his position differs from the substance dualism defended in this book, his arguments against reductive and nonreductive physicalism are powerful and have influenced the broader dualist discussion significantly. His critique of supervenience-based physicalism is especially important.
Popper, Karl R., and John C. Eccles. The Self and Its Brain: An Argument for Interactionism. New York: Springer, 1977.
A landmark collaboration between a philosopher and a Nobel Prize–winning neuroscientist. Popper and Eccles argue that the mind cannot be reduced to the brain and that some form of interactionist dualism is required to account for consciousness, free will, and the unity of experience. Eccles’s neurological evidence for non-physical mental causation remains significant.
Smythies, John R., and John Beloff, eds. The Case for Dualism. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1989.
A collection of essays presenting philosophical and empirical arguments for dualism from a range of perspectives. The volume includes contributions on the interaction problem, the evidence from parapsychology, and the coherence of dualist metaphysics. It remains a useful reference for the breadth of the dualist tradition in analytic philosophy.
Stump, Eleonore. “Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism and Materialism without Reductionism.” Faith and Philosophy 12, no. 4 (1995): 505–31.
Stump develops a Thomistic account of substance dualism that avoids the problems associated with Cartesian dualism while preserving the soul’s capacity for independent existence. Her work shows that the Christian tradition offers resources for a sophisticated dualism that takes embodiment seriously without collapsing into physicalism.
Evans, C. Stephen. “Separable Souls: A Defense of ‘Minimal Dualism.’” Southern Journal of Philosophy 19, no. 3 (1981): 313–32.
Evans argues for a minimal form of dualism that affirms the soul’s capacity to exist apart from the body without making strong claims about the soul’s nature. This modest approach is significant because it shows that one need not embrace full-blown Cartesian metaphysics to hold that the soul survives death—a point directly relevant to the argument of this book.
Murphy, Nancey. Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Murphy presents the most influential case for nonreductive physicalism from a Christian perspective. She argues that human beings are entirely physical and that the concept of the soul is unnecessary for Christian theology, since God can preserve personal identity through resurrection without an immaterial soul. This is the primary philosophical physicalist text engaged in More Than Dust.
Green, Joel B. Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008.
Green argues from a combination of neuroscience and biblical exegesis that the Bible teaches a monistic view of human nature in which there is no separable soul. He reads nephesh, psyche, and related terms as referring to the whole person rather than to an immaterial component. This is the most important physicalist reading of the biblical anthropological vocabulary and is directly critiqued throughout this book.
Corcoran, Kevin. Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alternative to the Soul. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.
Corcoran defends a constitution view of human persons in which the person is constituted by but not identical to a physical body. He argues that personal identity at the resurrection can be preserved without an immaterial soul. His position represents one of the more philosophically sophisticated versions of Christian physicalism.
Brown, Warren S., and Brad D. Strawn. The Physical Nature of Christian Life: Neuroscience, Psychology, and the Church. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Brown and Strawn argue that the findings of neuroscience and psychology support a physicalist view of human nature and explore its implications for Christian life, spiritual formation, and pastoral care. They contend that embodiment is so central to personhood that the concept of a disembodied soul is both scientifically untenable and theologically unnecessary.
Loftin, R. Keith, and Joshua R. Farris, eds. Christian Physicalism? Philosophical Theological Criticisms. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018.
This important collection brings together philosophers and theologians who challenge Christian physicalism from multiple angles. Contributors address problems with personal identity, the intermediate state, resurrection, moral responsibility, and the coherence of nonreductive physicalism. Cooper’s chapter on the biblical evidence is especially significant for the argument of this book.
Göcke, Benedikt Paul, ed. After Physicalism. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012.
A collection of essays exploring alternatives to physicalism in the philosophy of mind and theology. Contributors examine the limits of physicalist explanations and argue for various forms of dualism, panpsychism, and other non-physicalist positions. The volume demonstrates that physicalism is far from a settled consensus in either philosophy or theology.
Baker, Lynne Rudder. Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Baker argues that persons are constituted by their bodies but are not identical to them, proposing a middle way between substance dualism and reductive physicalism. While her view avoids some of the problems of strict materialism, it faces significant challenges regarding the intermediate state and personal identity at the resurrection—challenges that substance dualism avoids.
Cullmann, Oscar. Immortality of the Soul: Or, Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament. New York: Macmillan, 1958.
Cullmann’s influential essay argues that the Christian hope is not the immortality of the soul (which he attributes to Greek philosophy) but the resurrection of the body. This work has shaped much of the physicalist turn in modern theology, and its sharp dichotomy between Greek and Hebrew thought is directly challenged in this book. Cooper’s Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting provides the most thorough response to Cullmann’s thesis.
Fudge, Edward William. The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment. 3rd ed. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011.
This is the most important modern defense of conditional immortality ever published. Fudge argues from Scripture, history, and theology that the wicked will be utterly destroyed rather than tormented forever. His work changed the conversation for an entire generation of evangelicals. This book is the primary text that More Than Dust responds to—not its case for CI, which is affirmed, but its underlying physicalist anthropology, which is challenged.
Date, Christopher M., Gregory G. Stump, and Joshua W. Anderson, eds. Rethinking Hell: Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014.
An important collection of essays from the Rethinking Hell community, presenting the biblical, theological, and philosophical case for conditional immortality. Several contributors assume or argue for physicalist anthropology, making this volume directly relevant to the critique in this book. The essays by Date on the nature of final punishment are especially significant.
Fudge, Edward William, and Robert A. Peterson. Two Views of Hell: A Biblical and Theological Dialogue. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000.
A respectful debate between Fudge (defending conditional immortality) and Peterson (defending eternal conscious torment). The book is valuable for seeing the strongest arguments on both sides presented in dialogue. Fudge’s physicalist assumptions about human nature are visible here, as he treats nephesh and the soul language in ways that support the critique in this book.
Stott, John R. W. “The Logic of Hell: A Brief Rejoinder.” Evangelical Review of Theology 18, no. 1 (1994): 33–34.
Stott’s brief but enormously influential piece expressing openness to conditional immortality. Stott is significant for the argument of this book because he held CI without adopting physicalism—demonstrating that one can believe the wicked will be destroyed while also affirming the existence of an immaterial soul. He is a key example of a dualist conditionalist.
Pinnock, Clark H. “The Conditional View.” In Four Views on Hell, edited by William Crockett, 135–66. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.
Pinnock presents a clear and compelling case for conditional immortality as one of four views on hell. Like Stott, Pinnock represents a CI advocate who did not adopt physicalism, making his work significant for showing that the CI position does not logically require a monist anthropology.
Walls, Jerry L. Hell: The Logic of Damnation. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.
Walls provides a rigorous philosophical analysis of the doctrine of hell, defending the coherence of eternal punishment on the basis of human free will. While his conclusions differ from the conditionalist position of this book, his arguments about the nature of divine judgment, the intermediate state, and the moral dimensions of final punishment provide important context for the broader debate.
Walls, Jerry L. Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory: Rethinking the Things That Matter Most. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2015.
Walls surveys the major Christian positions on the afterlife with philosophical precision and pastoral sensitivity. His treatment of the intermediate state and his defense of the soul’s conscious survival of death are directly relevant to the argument of this book. Walls demonstrates that a robust eschatology requires a robust anthropology.
Baker, Sharon L. Razing Hell: Rethinking Everything You’ve Been Taught about God’s Wrath and Judgment. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010.
Baker develops a theology of God’s purifying presence in which the fire of divine love cleanses the repentant and consumes the obstinate. Her model is foundational for the theology of purification developed in Chapter 28 of this book. Baker shows that God’s judgment is not arbitrary punishment but the inevitable consequence of encountering perfect holiness.
Kalomiros, Alexandre. “The River of Fire.” Lecture, 1980. Widely reprinted.
This influential Orthodox lecture argues that the fire of hell is not a punitive instrument but the experience of God’s love by those who have hardened themselves against it. Kalomiros’s framework supports the theology of God’s purifying presence developed in this book, in which the same divine fire that purifies the willing destroys the obstinate.
Harris, Murray J. Raised Immortal: Resurrection and Immortality in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.
Harris provides a careful exegetical study of resurrection and immortality in the New Testament, including a thorough treatment of the Pauline intermediate-state texts. He argues that Paul teaches a conscious existence between death and resurrection, supporting the dualist reading of 2 Corinthians 5 and Philippians 1. His comparison of New Testament teaching with Greek philosophical ideas about immortality is especially valuable.
Reichenbach, Bruce R. Is Man the Phoenix? A Study of Immortality. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.
Reichenbach examines the philosophical arguments for and against human immortality, including the soul’s survival of death. While he ultimately adopts a more modest position, his survey of the arguments is thorough and fair. Cooper engages Reichenbach extensively in Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, and his work represents an important interlocutor in the monism-dualism debate.
Davis, Stephen T. After We Die: Theology, Philosophy, and the Question of Life After Death. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2015.
Davis defends substance dualism and the resurrection in the context of a broader philosophical theology of the afterlife. He engages physicalist alternatives at length and argues that personal identity at the resurrection requires the continuous existence of the soul. His treatment of the gap problem—what happens to the person between death and resurrection—is directly relevant to the argument of this book.
Gasser, Georg, ed. Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death? Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2010.
A collection of essays by philosophers and theologians addressing the metaphysics of personal identity in relation to bodily resurrection. Contributors explore whether physicalism or dualism provides a more coherent account of how the person who dies is the same person who is raised. The volume demonstrates that the personal identity problem is a serious challenge for physicalist eschatology.
Osei-Bonsu, Joseph. “Does 2 Cor 5:1–10 Teach the Reception of a Resurrection Body at the Moment of Death?” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 28 (1986): 81–101.
Osei-Bonsu argues that Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 envisions a period of disembodied existence between death and the final resurrection, countering the immediate-resurrection interpretation favored by many physicalist scholars. His careful exegesis supports the traditional reading of this text as teaching a conscious intermediate state.
Wolff, Hans Walter. Anthropology of the Old Testament. Translated by Margaret Kohl. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974.
Wolff’s classic study of Old Testament anthropological vocabulary (nephesh, basar, ruach, leb, and others) has been enormously influential in the monism-dualism debate. He argues that the Old Testament presents a holistic view of the person in which these terms refer to aspects of the whole person rather than to separable parts. Fudge draws heavily on Wolff. This book engages Wolff respectfully but argues that his conclusions do not require physicalism.
Barr, James. The Semantics of Biblical Language. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.
Barr’s landmark study exposes the illegitimate totality transfer fallacy—the error of importing the full range of a word’s meaning into every occurrence. This principle is directly relevant to the debate over nephesh and psyche, where physicalists often argue that because these words can mean “life” or “person,” they never mean “soul.” Barr’s methodology shows why each occurrence must be determined by context.
Stacey, W. David. The Pauline View of Man: In Relation to Its Judaic and Hellenistic Background. London: Macmillan, 1956.
Stacey examines Paul’s anthropological terminology in light of its Jewish and Hellenistic context. While his conclusions lean toward a more holistic reading, his careful engagement with the primary sources provides important data for both sides of the debate. Cooper engages Stacey at length.
Jewett, Robert. Paul’s Anthropological Terms: A Study of Their Use in Conflict Settings. Leiden: Brill, 1971.
Jewett examines Paul’s use of sōma, sarx, pneuma, and psyche in their rhetorical and polemical contexts. His study demonstrates that Paul’s anthropological language is more complex than either the monist or the dualist reading typically allows, and that context must determine meaning in each case.
Ludlow, Morwenna. Universal Salvation: Eschatology in the Thought of Gregory of Nyssa and Karl Rahner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Ludlow examines how two major theologians—one patristic, one modern—understood the possibility of God’s saving work extending beyond the moment of physical death. While this book does not endorse universal salvation, Ludlow’s study demonstrates that the postmortem opportunity has deep roots in the Christian theological tradition. Her treatment of Gregory of Nyssa is especially valuable for showing that the early church took seriously the possibility of postmortem repentance.
Tiessen, Terrance L. Who Can Be Saved? Reassessing Salvation in Christ and World Religions. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004.
Tiessen provides a careful evangelical treatment of the question of who can be saved, including those who have never heard the gospel. While he does not defend a postmortem opportunity per se, his framework for understanding God’s justice toward the unevangelized is relevant to the argument that God provides genuine opportunity for all persons to respond to the gospel.
Pitstick, Alyssa Lyra. Light in Darkness: Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Catholic Doctrine of Christ’s Descent into Hell. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.
Pitstick examines the doctrine of Christ’s descent into hell (Descensus ad inferos) in the tradition and in the theology of Balthasar. The Descensus clause of the Apostles’ Creed, which affirms that Christ descended to the realm of the dead between His crucifixion and resurrection, is one of the traditional foundations for the postmortem opportunity discussed in Chapter 29.
Habermas, Gary R., and J. P. Moreland. Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1998.
Habermas and Moreland provide a comprehensive, multidisciplinary case for life after death, including a substantial treatment of near-death experiences. Their discussion of veridical NDEs—cases where clinically dead patients accurately reported events they could not have perceived through normal means—is the most important Christian engagement with NDE evidence and is a primary source for Chapter 30 of this book.
Holden, Janice Miner, Bruce Greyson, and Debbie James, eds. The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009.
The most comprehensive scholarly overview of NDE research, covering epidemiology, phenomenology, veridical elements, aftereffects, and theoretical explanations. This is the standard reference work for the field and provides the evidential foundation for the NDE discussion in Chapter 30. The chapters on veridical perception are especially significant for the dualist argument.
van Lommel, Pim. Consciousness beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience. New York: HarperOne, 2010.
Van Lommel, a Dutch cardiologist, presents the results of his landmark prospective study of NDEs in cardiac arrest patients, published in The Lancet in 2001. He argues that consciousness can exist independently of brain function, a conclusion that directly supports substance dualism and challenges physicalist accounts of the mind.
Parnia, Sam. Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewriting the Boundaries between Life and Death. New York: HarperOne, 2013.
Parnia, a critical care physician, describes the AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) study, the largest prospective scientific study of consciousness during cardiac arrest. His findings include cases of verified consciousness during periods of no measurable brain activity, providing empirical evidence consistent with the substance dualist prediction that consciousness can exist apart from normal brain function.
Sabom, Michael. Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation. New York: Harper & Row, 1982.
Sabom, a cardiologist, was among the first medical professionals to conduct rigorous investigation of NDEs. His study includes detailed cases of patients who accurately described their own resuscitation procedures while clinically dead—information they could not have obtained through normal sensory means. These veridical cases remain among the strongest empirical challenges to physicalism.
Long, Jeffrey, with Paul Perry. Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences. New York: HarperOne, 2010.
Long presents the largest collection of NDE accounts ever assembled through the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF), analyzing over 1,300 cases. He identifies consistent patterns across cultures, ages, and medical circumstances that, he argues, cannot be explained by known physical or psychological mechanisms. His data supplements the veridical cases presented by other researchers.
Greyson, Bruce. After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond. New York: St. Martin’s, 2021.
Greyson, a psychiatrist who has studied NDEs for over four decades, provides a thorough and measured overview of the evidence. He argues that NDEs cannot be fully explained by current neuroscience and that they raise serious questions about the relationship between consciousness and the brain. His cautious, evidence-based approach makes this an especially credible contribution to the discussion.
Moody, Raymond A. Life after Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon—Survival of Bodily Death. New York: Bantam, 1975.
The book that launched the modern study of near-death experiences. Moody coined the term “near-death experience” and identified the common elements of the NDE narrative. While later research has refined and in some cases corrected his findings, Moody’s pioneering work remains the starting point for all subsequent NDE scholarship.
Chalmers, David J. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Chalmers introduces the “hard problem of consciousness”—the question of why and how physical processes give rise to subjective experience. He argues that physicalism cannot solve this problem and that some form of property dualism is required. While Chalmers does not defend substance dualism specifically, his arguments against physicalism have been enormously influential and directly support the case made in this book.
Nagel, Thomas. “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” Philosophical Review 83, no. 4 (1974): 435–50.
Nagel’s classic essay argues that consciousness has an essentially subjective character that cannot be captured by any objective, physical description. The question “What is it like to be a bat?” demonstrates that there are facts about conscious experience that no amount of physical knowledge can reveal. This is one of the foundational arguments against physicalism in the philosophy of mind.
Jackson, Frank. “Epiphenomenal Qualia.” Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1982): 127–36.
Jackson presents the famous “Mary’s Room” thought experiment: a scientist who knows everything physical about color vision but has never seen color herself would learn something new when she finally sees red. This knowledge argument demonstrates that physical information does not exhaust all there is to know about consciousness—a powerful challenge to physicalism that supports the case for substance dualism.
Kim, Jaegwon. Physicalism, or Something Near Enough. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.
Kim, one of the most important physicalist philosophers of mind, concedes that qualia—subjective conscious experiences—cannot be fully reduced to physical processes. His admission that physicalism faces an unresolved explanatory gap with respect to consciousness is significant because it comes from within the physicalist camp. This is a remarkably honest acknowledgment of physicalism’s limits.
Koons, Robert C., and George Bealer, eds. The Waning of Materialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
A collection of essays by leading philosophers arguing that materialism (physicalism) is in intellectual decline. Contributors address the hard problem of consciousness, the failure of reductive explanations, and the persistence of the explanatory gap. The volume provides a broad philosophical context for the claim made in this book that physicalism is not the settled consensus its advocates sometimes suggest.
Moreland, J. P. The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism. London: SCM Press, 2009.
Moreland argues that naturalism (and its physicalist anthropology) cannot account for the distinctive features of human personhood—consciousness, rationality, free will, moral responsibility, and intrinsic value. He contends that these features are best explained by the theistic claim that human beings are created in the image of God as embodied souls. The book is a sustained argument that physicalism fails as a total worldview.
Augustine. The City of God. Translated by Henry Bettenson. London: Penguin, 2003.
Augustine’s monumental work contains extensive reflections on the soul, the body, death, resurrection, and final judgment. His anthropology is robustly dualist: the soul is an immaterial substance that survives the death of the body and is reunited with a glorified body at the resurrection. Augustine’s influence on the Western theological tradition’s understanding of the soul cannot be overstated.
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. Ia, qq. 75–89.
Aquinas’s treatment of the soul in the Summa represents the most influential Christian account of the body-soul relationship in the history of theology. He argues that the soul is the substantial form of the body, capable of existing apart from the body after death but incomplete without it. His hylomorphic dualism offers a middle way between Platonic dualism and physicalism, and his arguments remain directly relevant to the contemporary debate.
Calvin, John. Psychopannychia (1542). In Calvin’s Tracts and Letters, vol. 3. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2009.
Calvin wrote this treatise specifically to refute the doctrine of soul sleep—the idea that the soul is unconscious between death and resurrection. He argues vigorously that the soul is conscious after death, drawing on extensive biblical exegesis. Calvin’s position demonstrates that the affirmation of a conscious intermediate state was central to the Reformation as well as to the patristic tradition.
Lewis, C. S. The Great Divorce. New York: HarperOne, 1946.
Lewis’s imaginative theological fiction portrays the afterlife as a place where the choices of the human will determine one’s eternal destiny. His vision of hell as a state chosen by those who refuse God’s love, and of heaven as the ever-deepening experience of God’s presence, provides a powerful imaginative framework for the theology of God’s purifying presence developed in this book.
Wright, N. T. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God 3. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.
Wright provides the most exhaustive historical and exegetical study of resurrection belief in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. While Wright is sometimes cited by physicalists for his emphasis on bodily resurrection, his actual position affirms the conscious existence of the dead between death and resurrection. His work confirms that early Christian belief included both a conscious intermediate state and a final bodily resurrection.
Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. New York: HarperOne, 2008.
Wright argues that the Christian hope centers on bodily resurrection and new creation rather than on a disembodied afterlife. While some physicalists have claimed Wright as an ally, he explicitly affirms the conscious existence of the dead prior to the resurrection. His popular-level treatment demonstrates that affirming the centrality of bodily resurrection does not require denying the intermediate state.
Crisp, Thomas M., Steven L. Porter, and Gregg A. Ten Elshof, eds. Neuroscience and the Soul: The Human Person in Philosophy, Science, and Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016.
This interdisciplinary collection brings neuroscientists, philosophers, and theologians into conversation about what the latest brain science means for the existence of the soul. Contributors include both physicalists and dualists, and the volume provides an honest assessment of what neuroscience can and cannot tell us about consciousness, free will, and personal identity.
Schwartz, Jeffrey M., and Sharon Begley. The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.
Schwartz, a neuroscientist, presents evidence from neuroplasticity research that the mind can direct changes in the brain—a finding difficult to reconcile with strict physicalism. If mental states were nothing more than brain states, it would be difficult to explain how deliberate mental effort can physically rewire neural pathways. This work provides empirical support for the causal efficacy of the mental, consistent with substance dualism.
Penfield, Wilder. The Mystery of the Mind: A Critical Study of Consciousness and the Human Brain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975.
Penfield, a pioneering neurosurgeon who spent decades mapping the brain’s electrical activity, concluded at the end of his career that the mind is something more than the brain. His famous experiments in electrical brain stimulation convinced him that while the brain can be stimulated to produce involuntary movements and memories, the conscious “I” that observes and interprets these events is not itself a product of brain activity.
Satel, Sally, and Scott O. Lilienfeld. Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience. New York: Basic Books, 2013.
Satel and Lilienfeld argue that popular neuroscience has overstated the ability of brain scans and neural correlates to explain consciousness, moral reasoning, and personal identity. They demonstrate that the common assumption that “the brain does everything” is not supported by the actual science. While not defending dualism per se, their critique of neuro-reductionism supports the claim that physicalism has not been established by neuroscience.
van Inwagen, Peter, and Dean Zimmerman, eds. Persons: Human and Divine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
An important collection bringing together philosophers to discuss the metaphysics of personhood in both its human and divine dimensions. Several essays address the body-soul question directly, and the volume includes contributions from both physicalists and dualists. Plantinga’s essay on materialism and Christian belief is especially relevant to this book’s argument.
Corcoran, Kevin, ed. Soul, Body, and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.
A collection of essays exploring whether and how personal identity can survive the death of the body. Contributors include physicalists, dualists, and those who argue that survival is impossible. The volume provides an excellent overview of the metaphysical options and demonstrates the seriousness of the personal identity challenge facing physicalist accounts of resurrection.
Plantinga, Alvin. “Materialism and Christian Belief.” In Persons: Human and Divine, edited by Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Plantinga argues that materialism (physicalism) is incompatible with several core Christian beliefs, including the incarnation, the intermediate state, and the resurrection. He contends that if human beings are entirely physical, the Christian account of what happens between death and resurrection becomes deeply problematic. His arguments complement the case made throughout this book.
Ryle, Gilbert. The Concept of Mind. London: Hutchinson, 1949.
Ryle’s famous critique of what he called “the ghost in the machine” launched the modern behaviorist and physicalist assault on substance dualism. While his critique of Cartesian dualism is sharp and influential, many of his arguments depend on a caricature of dualism that does not apply to the more sophisticated versions defended by Swinburne, Moreland, and Cooper. Understanding Ryle is important for understanding the origins of the physicalist turn.
Dennett, Daniel C. Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown, 1991.
Dennett presents the most ambitious physicalist attempt to explain consciousness in purely material terms. He argues that consciousness is not a single unified phenomenon but a collection of information-processing events in the brain. Most philosophers of mind, including many physicalists, have found his account reductive and inadequate to the phenomenon of subjective experience—a fact that supports the dualist critique.
Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Nagel, a prominent atheist philosopher, argues that physicalism cannot account for consciousness, cognition, or moral value. He contends that any complete account of reality must include an explanation for the emergence of mind that goes beyond physical processes. His willingness to challenge the physicalist consensus from outside the theistic camp makes his arguments especially significant.
Green, Joel B., and Stuart L. Palmer, eds. In Search of the Soul: Four Views of the Mind-Body Problem. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005.
This volume presents four Christian perspectives on the mind-body problem: strict physicalism, nonreductive physicalism, emergent dualism, and substance dualism. Each position is defended by a leading scholar and critiqued by the others. The format allows the reader to see the strengths and weaknesses of each view side by side, making it one of the best introductions to the debate for a Christian audience.
Moreland, J. P., and Gary R. Habermas. Immortality: The Other Side of Death. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1992.
An earlier collaboration by Moreland and Habermas presenting the philosophical, theological, and evidential case for life after death. The book addresses the intermediate state, the resurrection, and near-death experiences. It serves as a more accessible companion to the authors’ later and more detailed work in Beyond Death.
Badham, Paul, and Linda Badham. Immortality or Extinction? New York: Macmillan, 1982.
The Badhams examine the philosophical and evidential grounds for belief in life after death, including near-death experiences, the testimony of mystics, and the coherence of the concept of disembodied existence. While their approach is broader than the evangelical framework of this book, their engagement with the evidence is rigorous and their conclusions support the plausibility of consciousness surviving bodily death.
Almeder, Robert. Beyond Death: Evidence for Life after Death. Springfield, IL: Thomas, 1987.
Almeder, a non-Christian philosopher, examines the empirical evidence for survival of death, including reincarnation cases, near-death experiences, and mediumship. He concludes that the evidence, while not conclusive, is far stronger than most academics realize. His tough-minded, non-religious approach makes his conclusions particularly significant for a cross-disciplinary audience.
Isaac of Nineveh. The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian. Rev. 2nd ed. Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 2011.
Isaac of Nineveh, the seventh-century Syriac mystic, provides a theology of divine love as the ultimate reality that both purifies and judges. His vision of God’s love as a consuming fire that burns away everything that is not aligned with God’s heart is foundational for the theology of God’s purifying presence developed in Chapter 28 of this book.
Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013.
Erickson’s standard evangelical systematic theology presents a dichotomist (body-soul) view of human nature and defends the traditional doctrine of the conscious intermediate state. His treatment is clear, balanced, and representative of the mainstream evangelical position. Along with Grudem, Erickson demonstrates that substance dualism is the default anthropology of evangelical theology.
Reed, Eric S. From Soul to Mind: The Emergence of Psychology, from Erasmus Darwin to William James. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
Reed traces the historical shift from a soul-based psychology to a mind-based one, showing how the concept of the soul was gradually excluded from academic psychology during the nineteenth century. His account demonstrates that the decline of soul language in the sciences was driven by methodological commitments rather than by decisive philosophical arguments against dualism.
Evans, C. Stephen, and Brandon Rickabaugh. “What Does It Mean to Be a Bodily Soul?” Philosophia Christi 17, no. 2 (2015): 315–30.
Evans and Rickabaugh develop the concept of the “bodily soul”—a form of substance dualism in which the soul is naturally oriented toward embodiment but can exist apart from the body by God’s sustaining power. This formulation avoids the charge of Platonic dualism while preserving the soul’s capacity for independent existence during the intermediate state. Their framework is directly relevant to the anthropology defended in this book.
Schneider, Susan. “Why Property Dualists Must Reject Substance Physicalism.” Philosophical Studies 157, no. 1 (2012): 61–76.
Schneider argues that property dualism—the view that mental properties are real but non-physical—is incompatible with substance physicalism. If mental properties cannot be reduced to physical properties, then the substance that bears those properties cannot be purely physical either. This argument provides an important bridge from the widely acknowledged hard problem of consciousness to the substance dualist position.