#835 Why Does My Soul Act on My Particular Body?

Dr. craig’s response

The problem you raise here, Jacob, is known in the philosophical literature as “the causal pairing problem.” As explained by Jaegwon Kim, the problem is how to explain the causal connection between a particular cause and a particular effect.[1] In the case of physical substances, a causal connection between two events exists in virtue of their spatial relations, such as their spatial orientation and the path along which a causal chain between them lies. But assuming that the soul, being immaterial, is not spatially located, the causal connection between mental events and physical events is said to be inexplicable.

To illustrate the problem, we’re invited to imagine two souls, A and B, who are in the same mental state, for example, willing to lift the left arm of one’s body. If souls are not spatially located in their respective bodies, then there seems to be no explanation why A’s willing causes A’s arm to rise rather than B’s arm. One cannot say that the explanation lies in the fact that the body in question is A’s body, for the reason it is A’s body is because of A’s causal connection to it, so that such an explanation would be viciously circular. Dualism thus seems unable to explain the pairing of mental causes with their physical effects.

Kim’s causal pairing problem involves two claims: (1) causation requires pairing relations connecting a cause to its effect and (2) there are no such relations for minds because they are not spatially located. Both of these claims may be challenged.

With regard to (2), dualists who hold that souls do exist spatially in or throughout their bodies will be unfazed by Kim’s objection, since souls meet successfully the condition for being causally connected to their effects. The objection does remain relevant for dualist-interactionists who think that souls do not have spatial locations. But then the question becomes why we should think that only spatial relations can pair a cause with its effect. Prima facie this seems overly restrictive.[2]

As for (1) the claim assumes that there must be some pairing relation that connects causes and their effects. Why think this?[3] Kim does not say. Bailey, Rasmussen, and Van Horn speculate, “We have a guess as to the underlining [sic] reasoning for thinking that there must be a pairing relation: pairing is required because the satisfaction of a generality condition is necessary for causation,” for example,

(GC) Necessarily, if A and B share all of their qualitative properties, then A is no more qualified to count as the cause of C than B is.

Now Kim presupposes the truth of event causation, the view that causal relations hold only between events. But many dualist-interactionists embrace agent causation, the view that agents bring about effects by means of their actions. Bailey et al. contend that libertarian causal agency constitutes an exception to any generality condition like (GC) stipulating that qualitatively indistinguishable causes (like souls) cannot have different effects:

It’s common for immaterialists about human persons to think that a person can enjoy agent causal powers that allow her to choose an action among a range of alternative actions. The idea is that no property instantiated prior to the time of the agent’s action fixes exactly which action she performs. . . . We think such immaterialists would happily grant in addition that indistinguishable agents would (or at least could) have the same causal capacities. Now consider a world in which two persons, Tim and Tom, are exactly similar in all respects. . . . Suppose that Tim and Tom each have the same two options available to them—to cause A or to refrain from causing A. If Tom happens to cause A while Tim refrains, then we have a situation in which GC fails. The reason is that Tom and Tim are indistinguishable and yet Tom counts as the cause of A, whereas Tim does not. [4]

If libertarian free agents are causes of effects, then a soul could be the cause of a particular physical effect even though nothing distinguishes it qualitatively from another soul. Gregory Ganssle concludes that “Kim’s argument will work only against those versions of dualism that do not include an agent-causation view. Any position that involves this kind of agency will be immune from Kim’s argument.”[5]

Intriguingly, since Kim’s argument is meant to hold for immaterial mental substances in general, there should be a theological version of it, which has been called the divine causal pairing problem.[6] The challenge here is to explain, given God’s transcendence of space, why His mental events are causally connected with certain events in the physical world rather than others.

Fortunately, it’s difficult even to state the pairing problem for God’s causal activity in a way that does not appear a bit silly. For example, Ganssle writes, “If we need some relation to be present to link cause and effect, we will need a link between God’s willing and its effect. God wills that the Red Sea part. What makes it the case that this results in the parting of the Red Sea rather than the Mediterranean Sea?”[7] It is bewildering how such a question can even be posed with respect to an omnipotent being Whose volitions are inevitably fulfilled. The will of such a being is indefectible—necessarily, it is linked to its effect.[8] It is metaphysically impossible that God wills the parting of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean parts instead. So, while for some physical causes such as a rock’s hitting and breaking a window, “the spatiotemporal relation is sufficient to map the cause to a particular effect,” says Ganssle, “It is possible that, when God acts, it is the direct object of his volition that maps the cause to the intended effect.”[9] Indeed, necessarily, whatever God wills shall be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.