Diacovensia (Jan 2023)

Ensouled Identity: Deconditioning Philosophy and Unconditioned Theology

  • Joshua Farris

DOI
https://doi.org/10.31823/d.31.3.4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 31, no. 3
pp. 381 – 412

Abstract

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The nature of personal identity is ultimately theological in nature. Through a survey of some of the recent philosophical evidence for the soul (in the analytic philosophical tradition), the following lays out reasons for why personal identity is accounted for by a soul because of the nature of phenomenal consciousness as essentially descriptive of persons. Yet, this conclusion is buttressed by theological reflection on personal origins and the end of life. Through a guided reflection on the origins of persons and the end of life (through the lens of dementia case studies), further suggested information about the person as a substance of consciousness reveals more than what is uncovered through philosophical or scientific analysis alone. In this way, and building on Priest’s recents work, the following is a sketch of personal identity as ensouled identity that moves beyond what Priest calls the ‘conditioned’ mode to the ‘unconditioned’ mode of theology.

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