Journal: Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry
Volume: JBTM 21:2 (Fall 2024)
Article: Death As A Litmus Test For Theological Anthropology
Author: James K. Dew, Jr.

Death As A Litmus Test For Theological Anthropology

James K. Dew Jr.

Jamie Dew serves as president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

For the past ten years or so, theological and philosophical anthropology has been a major field of debate and contention within the broader theological world. Several factors seem to be driving this: (1) Continued work and discovery in neuroscience and psychology, (2) contemporary emphasis in Christology and its relationship to anthropology, (3) the tsunami of cultural attention given to sexuality and gender, and (4) the growing realization that what we say human persons are dictates much of what we can say in ethics, counseling, and about life after death. Importantly, much of the theological world has settled on a view of human persons that they would describe as “holistic.” But as we will see, while this common theme may give the impression of consensus, there is still a tremendous amount of ambiguity on what it actually means to be holistic.

As such, in this article I will argue two things. First, I will argue that the common practice in theological discourse of describing a view as “holistic” is unhelpful and not descriptive in the way that we would need it to be. To do this, I will flesh out how the term “holistic” is employed in radically different ways by different schools of thought. Second, I will argue that no matter what a person says their view is, what he says happens to a person at death is the real indicator of their actual ontology of human persons.

What Does It Mean To Be “Holistic”?

Before we jump in, a little background may be in order. Years ago, I stepped into the field of theological and philosophical anthropology largely due to interests in the possibility of life after death. I was pastoring a small country church in North Carolina—doing lots of funerals and thus constantly thinking about death—and had just finished a PhD at Southeastern Seminary in theological studies. While I loved my previous field of science and theology,

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the many funerals I performed brought death to the front of my mind and I found myself consumed with all the big metaphysical questions about life after death. Looking for helpful apologetic arguments to defend the existence of an immaterial soul, I was shocked to find that so many theologians and Christian philosophers had abandoned the various forms of dualism in favor of physicalism. But they didn’t just abandon it, they vehemently opposed it. A little bothered by this discovery, I thrust myself further into the debates until I eventually decided it was time to do a second PhD in the philosophy of mind at the University of Birmingham, UK, under the supervision of Yujin Nagasawa.

Initially ...