Overview: Here within The Creation of Self, building on the recent decline of interest in materialism and growing interest in emergent-souls, author Joshua R. Farris defends a traditional view of the soul.

Verdict: Situated in broader science-and-religion discussions, The Creation of Self is the first book-length defense of a creationist view of persons as souls. This book therefore serves as both a novel argument for God’s creation of selves and as a critique of contemporary materialist and emergent-self alternatives, critically examining naturalistic views that argue for a regular, law-like process behind the emergence of personhood.

Author Joshua Farris argues on the assumption that persons are fundamentally unique individuals that look more like singularities of nature, rather than material products grounded in regularity or predictability from past events. By extending the basic intuition that we are unique and mysterious individuals, Farris develops a sophisticated analytic defense of the soul that requires a sufficient explanation not found in nature but made by a Creator who has intentions and the power to bring about novel entities in the world.

The Creation of Self gives philosophers, theologians, and the lay intellectual grounding for thinking about persons as religious beings. It aims to help readers understand why recent scientifically motivated objections to the soul are unsuccessful, and why we must consider a religious conception of persons as souls as a common starting point.

Growing up in the Church of England, I was taught early on by my father’s mother that there are two basic perspectives held by orthodox theologians on the origin of each human soul: creationism and traducianism. The creationist view (not to be confused with scientific creationism) holds that God directly creates a new individual soul for everyone born into this world. Even though the soul is supernaturally created by God, the body for every new human is generated by the parents. The exact moment the soul is created is debated amongst creationists.

However, most evangelical creationists maintain that the soul is created by God at the moment of conception. Others have attempted to argue that the creation of the soul doesn’t come until implantation, or after implantation, or even at birth. All three of these views are fraught with difficulties. The Bible, however, supports the argument that the soul exists at conception, but I won’t continue to go off script here any more, have no fear.

In what is one of the most all-inclusive and dutifully-compelling reads on this subject matter that I believe I have ever read, The Creation of Self: A Case for the Soul by author Joshua R. Farris - a world leading expert on substance dualism, offers a profoundly captivating viewpoint on creationist and emergent views of the soul.

In closing, yes, the book is a sturdy, in-depth, yet magnificently-cultivated set of prose, but it is one chock full of innovative, clear and wholly precise thinking, and never once (I’ve read it cover to cover three times now) tells you what to think or how to respond. It has been built to be discussed, to be more widely appreciated (both the subject matter and the book itself), and therein is a Godsend for us humans to take the time to read; in my humble opinion.

About the Author - Joshua Ryan Farris is Humboldt Experienced Researcher Fellow at the University of Bochum, Germany, and an established author and editor. He lives in Helena, AL.

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