Chapter 3

The Biblical Case for Substance Dualism — The Soul in Scripture

This chapter is, in many ways, the foundation for everything else in this book. Before we can talk about Christ's human nature — before we can explore what happened to Jesus between the cross and the empty tomb, or whether the Incarnation survived Good Friday — we need to answer a simpler question first: What does the Bible actually say about what a human being is?

I believe the answer is clear. From the very first pages of Genesis to the closing visions of Revelation, the Bible consistently teaches that human beings are more than physical bodies. We are composed of both a material body and an immaterial soul or spirit. The soul survives the death of the body. And the dead are conscious — aware, active, and personally present — in what theologians call the "intermediate state," the time between death and the future resurrection.¹

This is not a minor point. It is not a side issue. If the Bible teaches that human beings have immaterial souls, and if Jesus Christ became a genuine human being, then Christ has an immaterial human soul. And if Christ has a human soul, then physicalism — the view that human beings are nothing more than physical organisms — is not just philosophically mistaken. It is a direct threat to the doctrine of the Incarnation.

In this chapter, we will walk through the key biblical passages that teach a body-soul anthropology. We will look at Old Testament texts that describe the soul departing the body at death. We will examine New Testament passages where Jesus, Paul, and other writers explicitly distinguish the soul or spirit from the body. We will consider the testimony of passages that depict the dead as conscious and active. And we will engage fairly with the objections that physicalist scholars have raised against this reading of Scripture.

I want to be upfront about something. Some scholars I deeply respect have argued that the Bible teaches a "monistic" view of human nature — that is, that the Bible sees us as unified wholes rather than body-soul composites. I take their arguments seriously, and I will present them fairly. But as we will see, the evidence runs strongly in the other direction. The scholar who has done the most careful work on this question is John W. Cooper, whose landmark study Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting remains, in my judgment, the most thorough biblical defense of what he calls "holistic dualism." I will engage with Cooper extensively throughout this chapter.²

Before we begin, let me clarify an important term. When I say "substance dualism," I mean the view that a human being is made up of two distinct kinds of reality — a physical body and a nonphysical soul. The soul is not just a way of talking about what the body does. It is a real thing in its own right, created by God, and it can exist apart from the body after death. This is different from saying that body and soul are enemies or that the body is bad and the soul is good. That would be Gnostic dualism, which the Bible and the church have always rejected. What I am defending is what Cooper calls "holistic dualism" — body and soul are deeply united in this life, designed to work together, but they are not the same thing, and they can be separated at death.³

We also need to note that this chapter builds on the survey of models of human nature presented in Chapter 2, where we defined physicalism, nonreductive physicalism, emergentism, emergent dualism, hylomorphism, and substance dualism. I will not repeat those definitions here but will assume the reader has that framework in place. For a fuller discussion of the philosophical arguments for dualism, see Chapter 4. For the empirical evidence from veridical near-death experiences, see Chapter 5. Our focus here is on the biblical text itself.

Let us also keep in mind the methodological principle introduced by Michael Wilkinson in Crowned with Glory and Honor: our anthropology should be shaped by our Christology, not the other way around. If the ecumenical councils — speaking for the whole church — insist that Christ's human nature includes a rational soul, then that should tell us something important about human nature in general.⁴ But even apart from that Christological principle, the biblical case for the soul is remarkably strong on its own terms. Let us begin where the Bible begins — in the Garden of Eden.

I. The Old Testament Witness: Body and Soul from the Beginning

A. Genesis 2:7 — The Creation of Humanity as a Body-Soul Composite

The Bible's first detailed account of the creation of a human being comes in Genesis 2:7:

"Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." (ESV)

This verse is foundational for everything that follows in biblical anthropology. Notice the two-step process. First, God forms the man's body from the dust of the ground. Second, God breathes into that body the "breath of life" — in Hebrew, the neshamah (נְשָׁמָה) — and the result is that the man becomes a nephesh chayyah (נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה), a "living creature" or "living being."⁵

Now, physicalist scholars like Joel Green and Nancey Murphy have argued that this verse does not teach a two-part composition of human nature. They say it simply describes God animating a body — like turning on a machine. On this reading, the "breath of life" is just the power that makes the body function, not a separate soul-substance. The man does not have a nephesh; he is a nephesh — a living, breathing organism, nothing more.⁶

I believe this reading, while understandable, misses something important. Cooper has shown that the creation account involves a genuine duality of ingredients. The dust comes from the ground; the breath of life comes from God. The human being is not made of one thing but of two — earthy matter and divine vitality. As Cooper argues, whatever interpretation we give to the specific vocabulary, the text presents human existence as arising from the combination of a material component and a nonmaterial component that comes directly from God. Human life is not inherent in the dust itself. It comes from outside, from above.⁷

Joshua Farris makes a similar point. Reflecting on the broader canonical context, he notes that Solomon's later comment in Ecclesiastes 12:7 — "the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it" — seems to restate what we find in Genesis 2:7 but with an important addition: at death, the two components separate and go in different directions. The body returns to the ground; the spirit returns to God. Farris observes that the "breath" spoken of in Genesis 2:7 "can be naturally read in light of the larger canon of Scripture as the soul that God creates," and that this reading was standard among the church fathers. Gregory of Nazianzus, writing in the fourth century, called the soul "the breath of God, a substance of heaven mixed with the lowest earth."⁸

Furthermore, Farris highlights the work of Old Testament scholar Richard Steiner, who has challenged the assumption that nephesh and ruach (רוּחַ) exclusively mean "breath" or "wind." Steiner argues that there are cases in the Old Testament — including Ezekiel 13:18, 20 — where nephesh must be translated as "soul" in the sense of an immaterial substance capable of disembodied existence. This understanding, Steiner shows, was common in ancient Near Eastern thought and did not originate with Greek philosophy.⁹

Now, I do not want to overstate the case. Genesis 2:7 by itself does not give us a fully developed philosophical anthropology. The Bible is not a philosophy textbook. But it does present the creation of human beings in a way that naturally suggests a duality of composition — earthly matter plus divine breath — and that duality becomes increasingly clear as the rest of Scripture unfolds.

We should also notice something about how Genesis 2:7 distinguishes human creation from the creation of animals. In Genesis 1:24, God simply says, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures." The animals arise from the earth by God's command. But when God makes the man, He does something unique — something personal and intimate. He forms the man with His own hands, and then He breathes directly into the man's nostrils. There is something added to the human being that is not added to the animals. God gives His own breath — His own neshamah — to this creature. The result is not just another living organism. It is a being made in the image of God, a being with a unique relationship to the Creator.

This point matters because physicalists often argue that Genesis 2:7 describes the same kind of animation that all living creatures share. But the text itself distinguishes human creation from animal creation. The divine breath is given specifically and personally to the man. And the broader canonical context — as we will see when we get to Ecclesiastes 12:7 — treats this breath as something that can be separated from the body and returned to God at death. Animals are never described this way in the Old Testament. The duality of composition implied in Genesis 2:7 is distinctively human.

B. Genesis 35:18 — Rachel's Soul Departs at Death

One of the most striking Old Testament passages about the soul's separation from the body occurs in the account of Rachel's death during childbirth:

"And as her soul was departing (for she was dying), she called his name Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin." (Genesis 35:18, ESV)

The key phrase here is "as her soul was departing." The Hebrew uses the word nephesh (נֶפֶשׁ) with the verb yatsa (יָצָא), which means "to go out" or "to depart." The text is telling us that something — Rachel's nephesh — left her body at the moment of death.

If nephesh here meant nothing more than "breath" or "life force," the language of "departing" would be unusual. We do not normally say that a person's life force "departs" as though it were an entity that goes somewhere. The physicalist reading — that this simply describes the cessation of breathing — does not do justice to the language of departure. As Cooper notes, the Old Testament scholar Otto Kaiser has argued that the nephesh which left Rachel at death "was not merely a last breath, but their personal being — a substantial, separable soul or self."¹⁰

The language here is simple but powerful. Something that was inside Rachel went out of her when she died. That something was her nephesh. And the natural reading is that her nephesh — her soul, her inner self — separated from her body at the moment of death.

C. 1 Kings 17:21–22 — The Soul Returns to the Body

If Genesis 35:18 tells us that the soul departs the body at death, the story of Elijah and the widow's son tells us that the soul can also return:

"Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the LORD, 'O LORD my God, let this child's life [nephesh] come into him again.' And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life [nephesh] of the child came into him again, and he revived." (1 Kings 17:21–22, ESV)

The Hebrew verb here is shuv (שׁוּב), meaning "to return." Elijah prays that the child's nephesh will return to him — and God answers the prayer. The child's nephesh comes back into his body, and the boy revives.

Think about what this passage assumes. The child's nephesh had left his body. It was somewhere else — outside the body, away from the child's physical form. Then, in response to Elijah's prayer, God caused the nephesh to return. The child came back to life because his soul re-entered his body.

On physicalism, this story is simply unintelligible. If there is no soul — no immaterial component that can leave and return — then there is nothing to "come back." The body either functions or it does not. There is no entity that departs and returns. But the text clearly presents the nephesh as something that left the body and then came back into it. This is the language of dualism, not physicalism.¹¹

D. Ecclesiastes 12:7 — Spirit and Dust Go Separate Ways

The book of Ecclesiastes provides one of the Old Testament's most explicit statements of body-spirit separation at death:

"And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." (Ecclesiastes 12:7, ESV)

Here the author describes death as a separation of two components. The material part of the human being — the "dust," the body — returns to the earth from which it came (echoing Genesis 2:7 and 3:19). And the immaterial part — the ruach (רוּחַ), the spirit — returns to God who gave it.

This is remarkable. At death, the human being does not simply cease to exist. Instead, the two parts that make up the person go in opposite directions. The body goes down to the ground. The spirit goes up to God. That is about as clear a statement of dualism as one could ask for.

Some physicalist scholars have objected that Ecclesiastes is "pessimistic wisdom literature" and should not be used for constructing systematic theology. They note that the author of Ecclesiastes has a bleak outlook on life and death, and that his statements may not represent the full biblical picture.¹²

I understand the concern, but I find the objection unpersuasive. The ontological claim — that body and spirit separate at death — is not dependent on the author's emotional state or literary genre. Whether the author is cheerful or gloomy about the fact does not change the fact itself. The separation of spirit from body at death is presented not as the author's personal opinion but as a description of what actually happens when a person dies. And the language directly echoes Genesis 2:7, creating a literary inclusio: what God put together at creation, death takes apart. The dust goes back to dust; the spirit goes back to the God who breathed it into the body in the first place.

E. 1 Samuel 28 — Samuel's Spirit at Endor

One of the most dramatic and controversial Old Testament narratives about the afterlife is the account of King Saul's visit to the medium at Endor in 1 Samuel 28. In desperation before a battle with the Philistines, Saul asks the medium to bring up the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel — and, to everyone's astonishment, Samuel actually appears:

"When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice… And the king said to her, 'Do not be afraid. What do you see?' And the woman said to Saul, 'I see a god coming up out of the earth.' He said to her, 'What is his appearance?' And she said, 'An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped in a robe.' And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and paid homage." (1 Samuel 28:12–14, ESV)

Samuel then speaks to Saul, rebuking him and prophesying his defeat and death — a prophecy that comes true the very next day.

Some interpreters have argued that the figure at Endor was not really Samuel but a demonic impersonation. This view has a long history, going back to some of the church fathers. But the text itself does not support it. The narrator identifies the figure as Samuel — not as an apparition, not as a demon pretending to be Samuel, but as Samuel himself. Samuel's prophecy comes true, which is the biblical test of a genuine word from God (Deuteronomy 18:22). And Samuel's rebuke of Saul is consistent with everything Samuel said during his lifetime.¹³

Whether we regard this as a genuine appearance of Samuel's spirit or as an exceptional act of God, the narrative clearly presupposes that Samuel's identity and consciousness persisted after death. Samuel was dead. His body was in the grave at Ramah. Yet here he is — recognizable, conscious, communicative, and fully aware of what is happening. He remembers who Saul is. He knows what is about to happen. He is, in every meaningful sense, still Samuel.

On physicalism, none of this is possible. If Samuel is nothing more than his physical body, then when his body died, Samuel ceased to exist. There is no Samuel to appear at Endor. The story assumes — indeed, it requires — that something of Samuel survived the death of his body.

II. The New Testament Witness: Body and Soul Clearly Distinguished

If the Old Testament provides hints, patterns, and implications of body-soul dualism, the New Testament makes the distinction explicit. In the words of Jesus, Paul, and the other New Testament writers, we find clear and unmistakable statements that distinguish the body from the soul or spirit, and that affirm conscious existence after death.

A. Matthew 10:28 — The Most Direct Statement of Body-Soul Dualism in the Bible

Of all the biblical passages bearing on the question of human nature, none is more direct or more devastating to physicalism than Jesus' own words in Matthew 10:28:

"And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:28, ESV)

The Greek word for "soul" here is psyche (ψυχή), and the word for "body" is soma (σῶμα). Jesus draws a sharp distinction between them. Human beings can kill the body — but they cannot kill the soul. The soul survives even when the body is destroyed. Only God has power over both.

The logic of the statement requires that body and soul are genuinely distinct. If the soul were simply another word for "life" or for the whole living person — as physicalists claim — then killing the body would kill the soul, since the person's life ends with the death of the body. But Jesus says exactly the opposite: killing the body does not kill the soul. The soul continues to exist after the body is destroyed.¹⁴

Physicalist interpreters have attempted to reinterpret psyche in this verse as "life" rather than "soul" — meaning something like, "Do not fear those who can kill you physically but cannot take away your life in the age to come." But as Cooper demonstrates, this reading simply does not work in context. The contrast between "kill the body" and "destroy both soul and body in hell" requires that body and soul are different things. If psyche just means "life," then the second half of the verse — "fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell" — would mean "fear him who can destroy both your life and your body in hell." But that makes no sense, because on the physicalist view your life is your bodily existence. Destroying the body would already be destroying the life. The verse only works if soul and body are genuinely distinct realities.¹⁵

Cooper also points out that the monistic scholar Eduard Schweizer tried to connect Matthew's usage of psyche with the Old Testament's usage of nephesh, treating both as synecdoche (a figure of speech where a part stands for the whole). But as Cooper observes, synecdoche simply cannot work here, because "body" and "soul" cannot both be referring to the same whole person in different ways. If they referred to the same thing, then killing one would be killing the other. But Jesus says precisely the opposite: one can be killed while the other survives.¹⁶

Furthermore, the reference to Gehenna (hell) places this saying squarely within the world of Jewish eschatology in the intertestamental period, where body-soul dualism was widespread — particularly among the Pharisees, whose eschatological framework Jesus shared on this point. As Cooper argues, it is far more likely that Matthew is using psyche and soma the way his contemporaries did than that he is speaking in some archaic, monistic way that would have puzzled his audience.¹⁷

B. Luke 23:43 — "Today You Will Be with Me in Paradise"

On the cross, Jesus turns to the repentant criminal dying beside Him and makes a stunning promise:

"And he said to him, 'Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.'" (Luke 23:43, ESV)

The word "today" is crucial. Jesus does not say, "You will be with me at the resurrection" or "You will be with me someday." He says today. That very day — while their bodies were still hanging on crosses, before either body had been placed in a tomb — Jesus and the thief would be together in paradise.

On physicalism, this promise is meaningless. If human beings are nothing more than their physical bodies, then when Jesus and the thief died, they both simply ceased to exist. There is no "you" to be with Jesus, and no "me" (Jesus) to be with the thief. The promise of paradise "today" requires that something of both Jesus and the thief survived the death of their bodies and was conscious that very day.

We will explore the Christological significance of this verse more fully in Chapter 23, where we examine Christ's activity between His death and resurrection. But for our purposes here, the anthropological point is clear: Jesus assumes that personal, conscious existence continues immediately after bodily death. This is precisely what substance dualism teaches and precisely what physicalism denies.¹⁸

C. Luke 23:46 and Acts 7:59 — Committing the Spirit to God

At the moment of His death, Jesus cries out:

"Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!' And having said this he breathed his last." (Luke 23:46, ESV)

The word for "spirit" here is pneuma (πνεῦμα). Jesus commits His spirit — something real, something personal — into the Father's hands. On physicalism, there is nothing to commit. There is no spirit to hand over. The body simply stops functioning.

Stephen, the first Christian martyr, echoes Jesus' words at his own death:

"And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.'" (Acts 7:59, ESV)

Stephen expects Jesus to receive his spirit — a conscious, personal entity — at the moment of death. He is not simply saying, "Remember me after I'm gone." He is entrusting something — his very self, his spirit — to the living Christ. Both Luke 23:46 and Acts 7:59 presuppose that the spirit is real, that it survives the body's death, and that it goes somewhere — to the Father, to the Lord Jesus — at the moment of death.¹⁹

D. Philippians 1:21–23 — "To Depart and Be with Christ"

The apostle Paul provides some of the clearest testimony in the New Testament for conscious existence between death and resurrection. Writing from prison, Paul reflects on his own mortality:

"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better." (Philippians 1:21–23, ESV)

Paul faces a genuine dilemma. He can continue living "in the flesh" — in his physical body — and do more ministry. Or he can "depart" — die — and be with Christ, which he says is "far better." The crucial phrase is "to depart and be with Christ." Paul expects that death will bring him immediately into Christ's presence. He does not expect to cease existing until the resurrection. He does not expect a gap, a blank, a period of nothingness. He expects to depart his body and be with Christ right away.

On physicalism, Paul's language is incoherent. If Paul is nothing more than his body, then death means the cessation of Paul. There is no Paul to "be with Christ." Paul would have to be re-created at the resurrection — but that is not what he says. He says that departing (dying) and being with Christ is "far better" than continuing to live. How can nonexistence be "far better" than fruitful ministry?²⁰

Cooper's analysis of this passage is thorough and persuasive. Paul consistently uses personal pronouns — "I" — in contrast with his body or flesh. He does not say, "My soul will be with Christ." He says, "I desire to depart and be with Christ." But the "I" who departs is the "I" who is currently living "in the flesh." The self — the person, the "I" — can exist in the body (now) or apart from the body (after death) and be with Christ. As Cooper summarizes, Paul "always employs the grammar of persons: the 'I,' the self, the core person is what continues in unbroken fellowship with Christ during this life, from death to the second coming, and forever."²¹

E. 2 Corinthians 5:1–8 — "Away from the Body, at Home with the Lord"

Paul elaborates on this theme in what is perhaps the most important passage in all of Scripture for understanding the intermediate state:

"For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, so that by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened — not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life… So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord." (2 Corinthians 5:1–4, 6–8, ESV)

Paul's dualist language here is striking. He repeatedly contrasts two conditions: being "at home in the body" (alive on earth) and being "away from the body and at home with the Lord" (after death). The person — the "we" — is distinct from the body. The person can be "in" the body or "away from" the body. When the person is away from the body, that person is "at home with the Lord."

Physicalist scholars have tried to read this as metaphorical. But as Cooper shows, Paul's language is personal and existential, not merely figurative. Paul expresses a genuine preference for one state over another — he would "rather" be away from the body and at home with the Lord. This preference is unintelligible if the person is the body. You cannot prefer to be "away from" yourself.²²

Cooper further demonstrates that in verses 6–10, Paul presents only two options: at home in the body, or away from the body and with the Lord. There is no third option — no extinction, no unconsciousness, no nonexistence. The person either dwells in the body during earthly life or dwells with the Lord after death. This is exactly what dualism predicts: the soul survives the death of the body and is immediately in Christ's presence.²³

Green has attempted to avoid the dualist implications of this passage by offering alternative readings, but as Cooper notes, Green's approach fails to adequately account for the language of 2 Corinthians 5:6–9 and the parallel passage in Philippians 1:20–24. Paul does not use the words "soul" or "spirit" in these passages, but he consistently uses personal pronouns in contrast with the body. The "I" who lives in the flesh is the same "I" who will depart and be with Christ. The person is distinct from the body.²⁴

F. Revelation 6:9–11 — Souls Under the Altar

The book of Revelation gives us a vivid portrait of the intermediate state — the condition of the dead between death and resurrection:

"When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, 'O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?' Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been." (Revelation 6:9–11, ESV)

These "souls" (psychai, ψυχαί) are depicted as conscious, personal beings. They are not sleeping. They are not unconscious. They are not nonexistent. They cry out to God. They ask questions. They receive answers. They are given white robes. They are told to wait.

Some interpreters have argued that this is symbolic apocalyptic imagery and should not be taken as a literal description of the intermediate state. I acknowledge the apocalyptic genre of Revelation. But even symbolic imagery must be based on something real. The imagery only "works" if the audience believes that the dead actually are conscious personal beings who exist in God's presence. John is not inventing a new theology here; he is drawing on shared assumptions about the state of the dead — assumptions that include conscious survival after bodily death.²⁵

On physicalism, these "souls" do not exist. The martyrs who died ceased to exist when their bodies died. There are no conscious persons under the altar to cry out, to be comforted, or to receive white robes. The entire scene presupposes that the dead are alive — that something of them has survived the death of their bodies. That something is what the text calls their "souls."

As Cooper notes, regardless of how one handles the apocalyptic genre of Revelation, the semantic point is clear: psyche is used here to refer to deceased but existing humans. The claim that the New Testament never uses "soul" in a dualistic sense is directly contradicted by this text.²⁶

G. Matthew 17:1–8 — Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration

At the Transfiguration, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John to a high mountain, and something extraordinary happens:

"And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him." (Matthew 17:2–3, ESV)

Moses and Elijah appear — visible, conscious, and conversing with Jesus. Elijah had been taken up to heaven without dying (2 Kings 2:11), so his appearance raises fewer questions about the intermediate state. But Moses died (Deuteronomy 34:5–6). His body was buried in an unknown location in the land of Moab. Yet here he is, centuries later — conscious, visible, recognizable, and engaged in conversation with the Son of God.

On physicalism, Moses cannot exist at the Transfiguration. His body died and was buried. If Moses is nothing more than his physical body, then Moses ceased to exist at death. He cannot appear on a mountain over a thousand years later. The Transfiguration narrative assumes that something of Moses survived his bodily death and remained in existence — the same Moses, not a copy or a re-creation, but the person himself.²⁷

H. Luke 16:19–31 — The Rich Man and Lazarus

Jesus tells the well-known story of the rich man and Lazarus:

"The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.'" (Luke 16:22–24, ESV)

The rich man and Lazarus are both dead. Their bodies have been buried. Yet both are depicted as conscious, aware, able to see, speak, feel, remember, and communicate. The rich man remembers his five brothers. He recognizes Abraham and Lazarus. He feels anguish. He makes requests.

Physicalist scholars have objected that this is a parable and therefore should not be used as theological evidence for the intermediate state. I take the point about genre. But even if this is a parable — and I am open to that reading — parables draw on real-world assumptions that the audience shares. Jesus does not invent a fictional cosmology for His parables. He uses what His audience already believes to be true. And what His audience believes is that the dead are conscious.²⁸

If Jesus' audience had been physicalists — if they had believed that death means extinction — then this parable would have made no sense. It would be like telling a parable about unicorns to make a point about agriculture. The parable works precisely because the audience already believes that the dead continue to exist in a conscious state. Jesus does not correct this belief. He builds on it. He uses it as the framework for His teaching about the consequences of how we treat the poor in this life.

As Cooper observes, this is not a case where a parable is being used to prove the intermediate state. Rather, the intermediate state is the assumed backdrop against which the parable's message is delivered. Cooper is careful to note that the parable is primarily about wealth and responsibility to the poor — but the fact that Jesus uses this anthropological framework at all tells us something important about what He and His audience assumed about life after death.²⁹

I. Hebrews 12:1, 23 — Witnesses and Spirits Made Perfect

The letter to the Hebrews provides two brief but significant references to the conscious existence of the dead. First, in 12:1:

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." (Hebrews 12:1, ESV)

The "cloud of witnesses" — the heroes of faith listed in Hebrews 11 — are described as "surrounding" us. The language implies awareness and presence. They are not merely historical examples. They are witnesses — conscious observers of the ongoing story of faith.

Then in 12:23, the author describes what believers have come to in their worship:

"…and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect." (Hebrews 12:23, ESV)

The departed saints are described as "spirits" (pneumata, πνεύματα) — immaterial, conscious entities who have been "made perfect." They exist. They are in God's presence. They are described as spirits — not as bodies, not as reconstructed organisms, but as spirits. This is dualist language, and it is used in one of the most theologically sophisticated books of the New Testament.³⁰

J. James 2:26 — The Body Without the Spirit Is Dead

James provides a concise, almost creedal statement of the body-spirit relationship:

"For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead." (James 2:26, ESV)

James uses an anthropological fact — that the separation of spirit from body constitutes death — as an analogy for a theological point about faith and works. But the analogy only works if the anthropological fact is true. The body without the spirit is dead. The spirit is what makes the body alive. When the spirit departs, the body dies. This is a dualist statement: body and spirit are distinct, and their separation is what we call death.³¹

III. Addressing the Physicalist Counter-Arguments

I have tried to present the biblical case for substance dualism as clearly and fairly as I can. But I would be doing the reader a disservice if I did not also engage with the strongest objections that physicalist scholars have raised. There are three major lines of counter-argument that deserve careful attention.

A. The "Hebrew Holism" Argument

The most common physicalist objection goes something like this: "The Old Testament presents a holistic view of human nature. The Hebrews did not think in terms of body and soul as separate parts. The whole person is a unified, integrated being. This 'Semitic totality concept' rules out dualism. Dualism is a Greek idea that was imported into Christianity — not a biblical teaching."³²

This argument has been enormously influential. It shows up in nearly every physicalist treatment of biblical anthropology, from Nancey Murphy to Joel Green. And it contains an important truth: the Bible does present human beings as integrated wholes. The Old Testament does not carve up the person into separate compartments the way Plato or Descartes might. The Hebrews saw the person as a unity — thinking, feeling, willing, worshipping, and working as a single, integrated being.

But here is the crucial point: holism and dualism are not opposites. This is one of Cooper's most important contributions to the debate. Holism describes how body and soul function together during life — they are deeply integrated, interdependent, and unified. Dualism describes what body and soul are — ontologically distinct realities that can, in principle, be separated at death. You can hold both at the same time. In fact, the Bible does hold both at the same time.³³

Cooper draws a careful distinction between "functional holism" and "ontological holism." Functional holism says that in normal human life, all the parts and aspects of the person work together as an integrated whole. Ontological holism says that the whole is made of one kind of stuff and that no part can survive the dissolution of the whole. The Old Testament teaches functional holism — but it does not teach ontological holism. Cooper argues that functional holism "affirms phenomenological, existential, and functional unity, but does not conceptually entail monism or personal extinction at death."³⁴

Think of it this way. A car is a holistic system — the engine, transmission, tires, and electronics all work together as an integrated whole. But that does not mean the car is made of only one kind of stuff. It has metal, rubber, glass, plastic, and electronic components. Holism in function does not require monism in composition. In the same way, the fact that body and soul work together as a unified person during life does not mean they are the same kind of thing. They can be functionally integrated and ontologically distinct at the same time.

The contributors to Christian Physicalism? make a similar point. As Loftin and Farris note, there is a common but mistaken assumption that "monism is synonymous with materialism." In fact, holism as an emphasis on the integrity and integration of the whole person is fully compatible with dualism — and Cooper "has rigorously argued in several places against the monist assumption so often smuggled into biblical studies."³⁵

Furthermore, Cooper shows that the Old Testament itself rules out all forms of substantial monism. The human being is not made from dust alone — God breathes the life-principle into the dust from outside. "Existential power is not inherent in the dust itself. God simply did not make the dust that way." If materialism were true, the dust alone would be sufficient for human life. But the text insists that something else — something from God — must be added to the dust to create a living being.³⁶

B. The Lexical Argument: "Nephesh Means 'Person,' Not 'Soul'"

The second major physicalist objection is lexical. Green and Murphy argue that the Hebrew word nephesh does not mean "soul" in the sense of an immaterial substance. It has a range of meanings — "throat," "breath," "life," "person," "desire" — and should usually be translated as "person" or "living being" rather than "soul." Therefore, they conclude, the Old Testament does not teach body-soul dualism.³⁷

There is genuine scholarly merit to this observation. Nephesh does have a wide range of meanings, and it would be a mistake to read Platonic or Cartesian ideas back into every Old Testament use of the word. Cooper himself acknowledges this point. He agrees with the scholarly consensus that nephesh often functions as a synecdoche — a part standing for the whole — as when "my nephesh cries out" simply means "I cry out."³⁸

But Cooper also issues an important warning: some scholars, "perhaps in fits of antidualist enthusiasm," have overgeneralized. They have implied that every use of nephesh is a case of synecdoche, that the word never refers to a distinct part of the person. This goes too far. "The variety of linguistic usage in the Old Testament defies any simple generalization, however rhetorically compelling."³⁹

The critical test cases are the death-and-departure texts. In Genesis 35:18, Rachel's nephesh "departs." In 1 Kings 17:21–22, the child's nephesh "returns." In Psalm 49:15, God will "redeem my nephesh from Sheol." In these contexts, nephesh clearly refers to something that separates from the body — something that can leave, go somewhere, and come back. Whatever nephesh means in other contexts, in death-and-departure contexts it refers to the personal reality that survives bodily death.

Moreover, Cooper makes a crucial logical point. Even if we grant that nephesh and ruach are never used in the Old Testament to refer to a surviving immaterial entity — which is debatable — this would tell us nothing about what the Israelites believed about the afterlife. The Israelites had another word for the dead: rephaim (רְפָאִים). The fact that they used rephaim rather than nephesh to describe those in Sheol does not mean they believed the dead ceased to exist. It just means they used a different word. To conclude from the lexical range of nephesh that the Hebrews were monists is, as Cooper puts it, a "fallacy of non sequitur."⁴⁰

C. The "New Testament Continuity" Argument

The third physicalist argument claims that even if the Old Testament is ambiguous, the New Testament should be read in continuity with Old Testament monism. Since the Old Testament (allegedly) does not teach body-soul dualism, the New Testament should not be read that way either. Terms like psyche in the New Testament should be understood the same way nephesh is understood in the Old Testament — as referring to the whole person, not to an immaterial soul-substance.

This argument fails for a simple reason: the New Testament explicitly teaches body-soul distinction and conscious survival after death. We have already seen the evidence. Jesus distinguishes body and soul in Matthew 10:28. Paul distinguishes himself from his body in 2 Corinthians 5 and Philippians 1. Revelation describes the dead as conscious "souls." Hebrews calls the departed "spirits." These are not ambiguous texts that require creative interpretation. They are clear, direct statements.

The physicalist strategy of reading New Testament texts through an Old Testament monistic lens actually gets the relationship backwards. We should read the Old Testament in light of the New, not the other way around. And when we do, we discover that the dualist implications already present in the Old Testament are confirmed and made explicit in the New. The New Testament does not contradict the Old Testament on this point; it clarifies and develops what was already there in seed form.⁴¹

Cooper makes this point with characteristic clarity: the intermediate state position "can be proven to be true by deduction from two well-established Pauline teachings: that 'to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord'; and that the resurrection occurs at the second coming. Together these entail that persons exist with Christ between physical death and resurrection."⁴²

D. The "Soul Sleep" Objection

A related objection, popular among some physicalist and annihilationist interpreters, is the "soul sleep" argument. Several biblical passages use the metaphor of "sleep" for death (Daniel 12:2; John 11:11; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–14). Does this not suggest that the dead are unconscious — asleep, not actively aware — until the resurrection?

The answer is no. "Sleep" is a metaphor for the outward appearance of death — the body's stillness, silence, and repose — not a description of the soul's condition. This is clear because the same biblical writers who use "sleep" language for death also affirm conscious existence after death. Paul uses "sleep" in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 but expects to "depart and be with Christ" in Philippians 1:23. Jesus calls death "sleep" in John 11:11 but promises paradise "today" to the dying thief in Luke 23:43. These are not contradictory statements. "Sleep" describes what the body looks like from the outside. Consciousness describes what the soul experiences from the inside.⁴³

IV. The Intertestamental Background: The Jewish Context

It is important to note that the New Testament writers did not compose their texts in a vacuum. They wrote within a Jewish culture that had, by the first century, developed a widely shared understanding of body-soul dualism and the intermediate state. The Pharisees — the Jewish group whose theology most closely aligned with the early Christians on eschatological matters — affirmed the existence of the soul, its survival after death, and the future resurrection of the body (Acts 23:6–8).

Cooper demonstrates that intertestamental Judaism included diverse perspectives on anthropology and eschatology, but that the dominant view among Pharisees and rabbis was what we might call "integral dualism" — the belief that souls or spirits exist after death until bodily resurrection. This is precisely the framework we see in the New Testament. Paul, educated as a Pharisee, shared this anthropology. And Jesus, though He was far more than a Pharisee, operated within this same body-soul framework.⁴⁴

Cooper also addresses the claim that body-soul dualism in Judaism was simply borrowed from Greek philosophy. While Hellenistic influence cannot be entirely denied, there are important differences between Jewish and Greek dualism. Greek dualism (especially Plato's) tended to exalt the soul and denigrate the body. The soul's separation from the body was seen as liberation. Jewish dualism, by contrast, regarded the body as good, the disembodied state as incomplete, and the resurrection of the body as the ultimate hope. As Cooper notes, Jewish believers "continued to think of the soul as retaining bodily form after death and included the notion of bodily resurrection in their eschatologies." They were not closet Platonists. Their dualism was compatible with their holistic understanding of human life.⁴⁵

V. The Christological Implications: Why This Matters for the Incarnation

We have traveled through a great deal of biblical terrain. Let me now draw out the implications that are most directly relevant to the argument of this book.

If the Bible teaches that human beings have immaterial souls — and I believe the evidence we have examined makes this case overwhelmingly — then we must ask: did Jesus Christ have a human soul?

The answer should be obvious. If Jesus became a genuine, complete human being (as the Bible and the creeds insist), and if genuine, complete human beings have immaterial souls (as the Bible teaches), then Jesus had an immaterial human soul. The logic is straightforward:

1. All genuine human beings have immaterial souls. (Biblical anthropology)

2. Jesus Christ is a genuine human being. (The Incarnation)

3. Therefore, Jesus Christ has an immaterial human soul.

This is exactly what the early church councils affirmed. The Council of Constantinople II (553) explicitly condemned the view — associated with the heretic Apollinarius — that Christ lacked a human rational soul. Gregory of Nazianzus had given the theological rationale centuries earlier: "What is not assumed is not healed." If Christ did not assume a human soul, He did not take on our full humanity, and our souls remain unredeemed.⁴⁶

Physicalism, by denying the existence of the soul altogether, effectively denies that Christ has what the councils insisted He must have. I do not believe physicalists intend to revive Apollinarianism. But the structural logic of their position leads there. If there are no souls — for anyone — then Christ does not have a soul. And if Christ does not have a soul, He does not have a complete human nature. We will explore these devastating Christological consequences in detail in Part V of this book (Chapters 20–29). But the foundation is laid right here, in the Bible's own teaching about human nature.

Consider what follows for the cross, for example. If human beings have no souls, then when Jesus died on the cross, His entire human nature ceased to function. There was no soul to survive the death of His body. The Son of God — during those three days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday — was no longer united to a living human nature. The Incarnation was interrupted. The hypostatic union — the union of divine and human natures in one Person — was effectively dissolved. This is the "triduum mortis" problem, which we will examine in detail in Chapter 21. But the point here is that the problem begins with biblical anthropology. If the Bible teaches that human beings have souls (as I believe we have shown), then Christ had a soul, and that soul survived the cross. The Incarnation was not interrupted. The Son remained united to His human soul even when His body lay in the tomb.

Or consider what follows for the descent to the dead. The Apostles' Creed affirms that Christ "descended into hell" (or, more accurately, "descended to the dead"). First Peter 3:18–20 tells us that Christ, "put to death in the flesh" but "made alive in the spirit," went and "proclaimed to the spirits in prison." If Christ had no soul or spirit, where did He go? What did the proclaiming? On physicalism, there is no Christ between death and resurrection — His body is in the tomb and there is nothing else. The descent to the dead becomes impossible. But if Christ had a human soul, as the biblical anthropology of this chapter requires, then the descent to the dead makes perfect sense: Christ's human soul, still united to the divine nature, was active during the triduum, proclaiming victory over sin and death (see Chapter 23 for the full argument).

Wilkinson's insight is especially important here. If Christology should norm our anthropology — if the man Jesus Christ, as the paradigmatic human being, defines what it means to be human — then the church's insistence that Christ has a human body and a rational soul should settle the debate about human nature. The Chalcedonian Definition does not leave room for a Christ whose human nature is purely physical. And if Christ's human nature includes a soul, then human nature in general includes a soul.⁴⁷

VI. Cooper's "Holistic Dualism" — The Biblical Position

Before we close, I want to say a word about the specific form of dualism that I believe the Bible teaches, and that I am defending in this book. It is not Platonic dualism, which sees the body as the soul's prison and longs for disembodiment. It is not Cartesian dualism, which treats body and soul as two self-contained substances that interact only at a single point. It is what Cooper calls "holistic dualism."⁴⁸

Holistic dualism affirms two things. First, body and soul are deeply integrated during earthly life. They are designed to work together. The person is a unity — not two beings stuck together, but one person in whom body and soul are intimately interrelated. We think with our brains. We feel with our bodies. We worship as embodied souls. The Bible's holistic emphasis is genuine and important.

Second, body and soul are ontologically distinct and can be separated at death. The soul survives the death of the body. The person continues to exist in a disembodied state — diminished, incomplete, awaiting the resurrection, but genuinely alive and conscious. The intermediate state is real. The dead are with Christ. And they will be reunited with their glorified bodies at the resurrection.

As Cooper puts it: "Personal existence apart from earthly-bodily existence is possible. When we die, there is a dichotomy of ego and the earthly organism. We are constituted in such a way that we can survive 'coming apart' at death, unnatural as this may be. This is all that I mean by 'dualism.'" Cooper emphasizes that this is a "minimal, generic dualism" that does not commit us to any particular philosophical school. "Only some combination like 'holistic dualism' will tell the whole story."⁴⁹

This is exactly the position I hold, and it is the position I believe the Bible teaches. The Bible is not a philosophy textbook. It does not give us technical definitions of "soul," "spirit," "body," or "person." But it consistently presents human beings as having both material and immaterial dimensions, and it consistently depicts the dead as surviving the dissolution of their bodies. Any philosophy of human nature that is faithful to Scripture must account for these realities. And that means any faithful philosophy of human nature must be some form of dualism.

VII. Conclusion: The Soul in Scripture — A Consistent, Pervasive Teaching

We have covered a great deal of ground in this chapter. Let me summarize what we have found.

In the Old Testament, God creates human beings from dust and divine breath — a duality of composition (Genesis 2:7). The nephesh departs the body at death (Genesis 35:18) and can return to the body at restoration (1 Kings 17:21–22). The spirit returns to God while the body returns to dust (Ecclesiastes 12:7). And the dead appear as conscious, personal beings who retain their identity and knowledge (1 Samuel 28).

In the New Testament, Jesus explicitly distinguishes the soul from the body and teaches that the soul survives the body's destruction (Matthew 10:28). Jesus promises conscious existence immediately after death (Luke 23:43). Jesus and Stephen commit their spirits to God at the moment of death (Luke 23:46; Acts 7:59). Paul expects to be with Christ immediately upon dying (Philippians 1:21–23) and describes the person as separable from the body (2 Corinthians 5:1–8). The dead are depicted as conscious, communicative souls (Revelation 6:9–11) and as "spirits of the righteous made perfect" (Hebrews 12:23). Moses appears alive and conversing with Jesus centuries after his death (Matthew 17:1–8). And the separation of spirit from body is what constitutes death (James 2:26).

This is not one or two isolated proof-texts. It is a consistent, pervasive pattern running from the first book of the Bible to the last. The Bible teaches body-soul dualism — not the harsh, body-hating dualism of Plato, but the warm, holistic dualism of a God who created us as embodied souls, who grieves when death tears body and soul apart, and who promises to put us back together again at the resurrection.

The physicalist counter-arguments, while worthy of respect, do not overcome this evidence. Hebrew holism does not entail monism. The lexical range of nephesh does not disprove dualism. And the New Testament does not continue a supposed Old Testament monism — it makes explicit the dualism that was already implicit in the older Scriptures.

I have argued extensively for this biblical case for substance dualism in my companion book Beyond the Grave (especially Chapters 6–7). I will not reproduce those arguments at length here. My purpose in this chapter has been more focused: to lay the biblical foundation for this book's central argument about the Incarnation. If human beings have souls, then Christ has a soul. And if Christ has a soul, then physicalism about Christ's human nature is not just philosophically problematic — it is biblically unfaithful.

In the next chapter, we will turn from the biblical evidence to the philosophical arguments for substance dualism and against physicalism. But the Bible comes first — not because philosophy is unimportant, but because, for the Christian, Scripture is the supreme authority. And on the question of the soul, Scripture speaks with a clear and consistent voice.