Ward’s Personal Idealism: Souls as Embodied Agents Created by God

Philosopher-theologian Keith Ward's “personal idealism” integrates his philosophical convictions about consciousness and souls, idealism in Eastern traditions, and his Christian faith (Ward, 2022). It's a heady brew.

Ward describes souls as “the embodied agents which are created by God.” To build his case, he cites the “huge gap in modern culture between neurophysiologists and old-fashioned philosophers” (musing, “We thought we were very trendy in our time”). It's a fundamental, philosophical divide, he says, and from his perspective, he begins from consciousness, puts consciousness first, because “this is where all knowledge starts … your starting point is perception, a set of perceptions, a set of concepts. And from that, you build up a picture of what the world is like” (Ward, 2006).

Ward stresses “you can never get rid of consciousness.” He is firm: “From where I sit, I can just say whatever view you come up with, consciousness is not reducible to particles which are publicly observable in space and time.” He is adamant: “I will just not give way on this—because it seems to me so obvious; I don't see how anyone can deny it.” Responding to questions about the putative illusion of conscious unity, Ward is dismissive (politely): “You're inventing a problem.”

Consciousness as Irreducible

Ward's idealism surfaces when contrasting dualism. His claim, even for explaining Descartes, is not that mind and body/brain are separate substances that must somehow interact, but rather are subject and object, the thinker and perceiver as the subject who is aware of its perceptions and which is engaged in having its thoughts. “What you've got is a subject thinking. The subject is not a different substance.”

Embodiment and the Soul

Ward then rationalizes his idealism. “The whole world is actually a construct with perceptions and feelings and thoughts. But the agent who is having these perceptions, the perceiver, the thinker, is not another thing somewhere. So, subjects and objects are always together. There's no subject without an object. There's no mind without some objectivity, some environment in which it's embodied. That's why I see embodiment as an essential part of mentality, and of being a person. When you're talking about the mind, you're talking about a subject, an embodied subject, who nevertheless is not to be identified simply by physical facts which are publicly observable. I think that's what the soul is: An embodied subject of intellectual and moral agency” (Ward, 2006).