Dear Dr. Craig, I've heard that you recently have become a Cartesian substance dualist. Is it true? If so, can you expand on some of your reasons for

abandoning your previous dualistic interactionism position in favor of Cartesian substance dualism?

Finally, since in a previous question of the week, you said that the results of Leibitt's experiments

were exactly what one should expect if dualistic interactionism were true, do you think that

Leibitt's results also are fully expected from a Cartesian substance dualistic position?

Thank you, Agostin, from the United States.

I'm so glad you asked, Augustine, so often reports circulate through the grapevine that consist

of half-truths, and so it is in this case. You did the right

thing in going to the source. What is true is that I have unexpectedly come to believe that a person

is identical to his soul, as Descartes believed,

rather than to a compound entity composed of soul and body.

That is to say, I am not a compound object that has a soul as a part, rather I am a soul who contingently has a body.

My argument for this conclusion may be found in my recent paper presented at the annual

convention of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, a video of which is

available on YouTube. Here are the premises of my argument. One, the person before physical death

is identical to the person after physical death.

2. The person after physical death is identical to the soul after physical death.

3. The soul after physical death is identical to the soul of death. Three, the soul after physical death is identical to the soul before physical death.

Four, therefore, the person before physical death is identical to the soul before physical death.

We are committed to these premises by biblical teaching, I believe, and the conclusion follows by the transitivity of the identity

relation. Therefore, a person is a soul who presently has a body.

This conclusion is wholly compatible with dualism interactionism,

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