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.