The Spiritual Soul by Matthew Churchouse proposes a revised Pentecostal view on the doctrine of human constitution. Churchouse begins by laying out a brief description of Pentecostal theological method as: ‘that which begins from participation in the Pentecostal spirituality’ (p. 4). Thus, while Pentecostals, like other Protestant scholars, ‘ground theology in the final authority of Scripture’, what is unique to said scholars is that ‘[Pentecostal] spirituality is the contextual framework from and within which they operate when constructing their … theology’ (p. 4). Such theology pays particular attention to emphases such as ‘the renewing work of the Holy Spirit’ (p. 5), an imminent eschatological frame, and, most importantly for the aims of this book, the ‘holistic’ and ‘embodied nature’ (p. 7) of the human person.
The book is comprised of four parts. Part I briefly surveys the history of Western Pentecostal theological thought on the doctrine of human constitution. In Part II, Churchouse engages two leading Pentecostal voices on this doctrine, Amos Yong and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen and critiques their views, viz., ‘emergent monism’, according to which humans are essentially physical beings (hence, the monism) with minds that emerge out of, or supervene on, the brain (hence, emergent). He argues that such a view is ‘not particularly concordant with’ the Pentecostal theological emphasis on the dualistic nature of human persons; nor is it ‘philosophically persuasive’ when viewed against the wider literature on theological/philosophical anthropology (p. 9).
In Part III, Churchouse moves to the constructive part of his work to offer an ‘enhanced Pentecostal philosophical-theological model of human constitution’ (p. 132) – what he terms ‘Enspiritable Holistic Dualism’ (p. 197). Here, he builds on the ‘enchanted’ Pentecostal ontology of James K.A. Smith, the exegetical work of John Cooper, and insights from philosopher Richard Swinburne (among others). Especially helpful here is Churchouse’s use of Cooper’s set of clarifications regarding biblical and intertestamental terms typically translated ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’, which have led some thinkers to a mistaken trichotomous (viz., body, soul, spirit) theological anthropology. Churchouse points out that the ‘functional holism’ in the human person does not imply an ‘ontological monism’; nor does it necessarily imply ontological dualism (pp. 151–2). Rather, Churchouse contends that a ‘dualistic holism’ or a ‘holistic dualism’ (p. 14) offers a third way between classical Cartesian substance dualism and the emergent monism of Yong, Kärkkäinen, et al.
In Part IV, Churchouse builds on the exegetical work of biblical scholars such as John Levison and Gordon Fee and engages philosophical insights from J. P. Moreland to chart out an ‘enhanced’ doctrine of human constitution: one that is consonant with Scripture, in line with the literature on philosophy of mind, and amenable (or, as some might argue, unique) to the Pentecostal tradition. Building on Moreland’s idea that the spirit is that faculty of the soul in which divine-human encounter takes place, Churchouse defines the spirit as the ‘lead, central, and representative faculty of the soul’, seeking to highlight the ‘vocational’ orientation of human nature of ‘knowing and serving God’ (p. 222). This, according to Churchouse – taken together with the dualistic holism described above – is the correct, indeed ‘Pentecostally-enhanced’, understanding of the doctrine of human constitution.
Overall, Churchouse displays remarkable fluency across a wide-ranging set of scholarly literatures, putting theological anthropology in compelling dialogue with both historic Pentecostal theology and philosophy of mind. Much to his credit, Churchouse also plumbs the depths of these fields not only to critique his interlocutors but also in constructing a strong case for his original view.
Also worth noting is the contribution Churchouse makes in bringing up the possible over-emphasis among Pentecostal theologians on the goodness of embodiment. Many such theologians have tended away from dualisms of any kind, for fear that the body would be construed in less-than-noble terms. But Churchouse, relying on Swinburne’s dualism, anticipates their objection, noting that both he and Swinburne himself appropriately value the goodness of the body, and seek only to underscore the body’s contingency, not its unimportance. Churchouse, himself a Pentecostal, takes the critique further, suggesting that it might just be that certain Pentecostal theologians are over-emphasising the goodness (or materiality) of the body, drinking the postmodern ‘“materialism” of the age’ (p. 191), a materialism according to which race, gender and sex are all the rage.
One way in which the book could have been improved would have been for Churchouse not to have defered discussion of certain key terms till later in the book. Not only for readability, but also for cogency, Churchouse might have done well to bring forward the discussions of the following terms: (1) spiritual – in its more generic, philosophical use versus its more theological meaning; (2) person – as a human being v. a ‘relational being with self-conscious capacities’ and (3) spirit as an aspect/faculty of the soul rather than something defined in contrast to the soul. Rather than waiting until Part IV and the Conclusion, clarifying these terms and articulating his view in the Introduction might have helped the reader follow the argument a bit better. At any rate, the argument is one well worth the attention of theologians who seek to (re)assess the doctrine of human constitution in light of the dualistic holism which Churchouse promulgates and compels the reader to take seriously.
