Christian Materialism and the Quest for Human Personhood

Abstract This paper offers a critical exploration of philosopher Kevin Corcoran’s proposed Christian Materialism. Corcoran’s constitution view claims that we human persons are constituted by our bodies without being identical with the bodies that constitute us. I will critically evaluate this view and argue that Corcoran has not successfully managed to ground a first-person perspective and intentional states in materialism. Moreover, Corcoran’s property dualism about mental states and the idea of the causally efficacy of such states seem incompatible with materialism. Corcoran’s view of imago Dei is also explored and evaluated. Towards the end of the paper I put forward a brief defense of dualism in light of Corcoran’s critique.