Integral salvation in the risen Christ: the new 'emergent whole'

Abstract

This essay examines current mind-body theories and argues that “emergentist monism” is preferable to “nonreductive physicalism” in the search for an adequate model of personhood. It demonstrates the compatibility of the emergentist account of evolving nature with Karl Rahner’s notion of “active self-transcendence”, and the need to appreciate the “integral” character of final salvation understood as participation, through the Spirit, in the divine identity of the risen Christ who is the new definitive “emergent whole” in person. The essay concludes with the proposition that integral salvation in Christ is fully actualised in the privileged event of death as the gift of “admirable exchange” of natures in the person of the risen One.