booK reVIeWS AND NoTICeS but, is it inconsistent to say that the apparently contingent states of affairs are, in reality, only apparent? The counter-intuitiveness of this view does not imply that it is wrong. o'Connor did not justify the requirement that we should avoid the above-mentioned 'absurd' conclusion that there are no contingencies. Therefore, his remaining task is to clarify the motivation for seeking the middle way. In what sense is the necessary being necessary? ordinarily, modalities are analyzed in terms of quantifications over worlds. o'Connor himself mentions this analysis (p. 70). However, it is not obvious that the necessity of o'Connor's necessary being can be explained in the ordinary way, because the necessary being is not immanent to any world, but transcendent. Probably, the modal status of an entity can only be analyzed in the possible-world framework when the entity exists inside the worlds. Therefore, I believe that o'Connor cannot say that the necessary being is necessary because it exists in every world. Perhaps o'Connor might realize this subtle point because, with regard to the necessary being, he says that it 'exists necessarily a se (of itself, rather than having its necessity rest in connection to something else that necessarily exists)' (p. 128). However, he does not give a more detailed analysis on the notion of 'a se necessity'. Therefore, a consideration concerning the modal status of the necessary being itself might be needed. JoSHuA FArrIS University of Bristol Georg Gasser (ed.), Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death? Ashgate, 2010. Personal Identity and Resurrection offers thoughtful and critical solutions to the problem of personal survival after somatic death. The authors, who participated in the university of Innsbruck 2008 summer conference, rigorously engage in ways to make sense of the conjunction of both personal identity and persistence from somatic death, the possible intermediate state, and the physical resurrection. Yet it offers more than a defense of survival in Christian philosophy of religion and moves beyond the foundations to construct theology. Thus, a careful, yet dense, treatment contributes to the discussion and provides many avenues worthy of further research. 197booK reVIeWS AND NoTICeS A brief summary is in order. Stephen T. Davis offers an intriguing account of personal identity in the resurrection by arguing for the Divine will as a necessary and essential property of a person's identity in the resurrection. Persistence, on this account, requires a person's intrinsic properties plus Divine sustenance. one might be inclined to think edwards has come back from the dead because of the similarity Davis has with an edwardsian metaphysic of persons. Davis begins his essay by laying the groundwork of God's conservation of the world, the problems associated with personal identity, the traditional conception of the resurrection, and contemporary problems associated with it. Davis ends by responding to objections raised against his model. In this section, Davis responds to van Inwagen's objection from immanent causation by suggesting that the causal chain passes through the mind of God. His explanation of this defense is terse and has an arbitrary feel. Is it that the body is real when it exists, yet when it dies it still exists in the mind of God? Confusingly, Davis argues that persistence of identity requires one's intrinsic properties plus Divine conservation but it seems plain that the body does not exist; and by extension, a future body is not causally connected to the former body. other questions emerge that deserve attention. Can the body be a real object that is later co-assimilated into the mind of God as an idea that is made real again at a later point? With all of its virtues, Davis's solution is a bit perplexing. Chapters 2, 3, and 5 seem to build on a discussion that emerged from van Inwagen's body-snatching model of the resurrection. In chapter 2, Zimmerman supplies an alternative solution to the body-snatching model with his falling elevator model. later bodies are causally connected to their original bodies through an in-built pattern. A "budding" mechanism in the dead body gives rise to a later existing body. one intriguing contribution this model provides is its development of an emergent substance dualist position. emergent substance dualism, made famous by William Hasker, says that properties of a conscious sort give rise to a person, but it is difficult to see how upon somatic death that person would persist given its supervenience upon the bodily organism. Zimmerman's model presents one possible explanation. It also has the virtues of positing a robust and morally coherent theological story contrasted with the deceptive body-snatching model. Apart from the virtues, it encounters multiple problems from closest continuer, the problem from duplication, and the problem from momentum-like properties. In chapter 3, eric olson argues based on the irreversibility 198 booK reVIeWS AND NoTICeS principle that three solutions remain for personal survival from somatic death: body snatching, immaterialism or a Divine-command model with a 4D ontology. In chapter 5, Hud Hudson responds to the Animalist charge of a material organism's inability to survive somatic death. Hudson argues for a perdurantist conception of persons as satisfying the requirements for survival. I tend to agree that Hudson's solution is superior to other materialist alternatives. Godehard brüntrup, in chapter 4, explores a mediating view between 3D conceptions of persons and 4D conceptions of persons. Interestingly, he argues that 3D conceptions are irreducible to 4D conceptions, but that process ontology with gen-identity accounts for realist ontology of events, yet also presumes an idealist ontology of subjects that perdure in a similar fashion as found in stage theory. Chapters 6 and 7 offer attractive constructions of persons by drawing from analytic thought and fusing it with what is often associated with continental thought. In chapter 6, Thomas Schärtl disputes the likelihood of the reassembly view, but argues instead for a phenomenal self-surviving somatic death without the original body. The question emerging, in the reader's mind, from his discussion is what in fact is surviving? Johannes Haag, in chapter 7, argues for a transcendental 'I' similar to that of Immanuel Kant. The next set of chapters, from 8-11, center on hylomorphism or Constitutionalism or both. In chapter 8, Niederbacher reflects on disparate statements found in Thomas's hylomorphism and concludes that Thomas is working with two understandings of physical matter – one is prime matter and informed matter. With this ontology, Aquinas is able to account for the persistence of bodies from death to resurrection. In chapter 9, baker argues for a constitution view of the resurrection, which has the attending benefit of a unified natural world. In chapter 10, Quitterer demonstrates the similarities between hylomorphism and the constitution view and argues that hylomorphism has the advantage of construing the soul as inclusive of mental and bodily predicates. Kevin Corcoran, in chapter 11, argues that a constitution view does not contradict a healthy relational self, but in fact provides the ontological ground for a relational self. The final chapters give a helpful constructive treatment of theological and scientific issues. In chapter 12, Christian Tapp explains ratzinger's view on the resurrection. In chapter 13, Wandinger re-considers the logic of purgatory and the possibility of universal salvation. Finally, in 199booK reVIeWS AND NoTICeS chapter 14, russell assembles various positions on the conjunction of eschatology and cosmology by considering both their continuity and discontinuity. The contributions are numerous, and, as such, I will limit myself to three movements in relation to the contemporary philosophical/theological literature. First, the book contributes by carrying the discussion forward on materialism and the resurrection. The synthesis of recent materialist understandings of the resurrection makes for a useful synopsis in one volume. Particularly helpful is Hudson's five rejoinders to the threat of Animalism. As noted earlier, if one considers emergent substance dualism as a form of materialism then Zimmerman takes it one-step forward in offering a natural design plan for survival. Furthermore, the constitution view as a form of materialism receives ample treatment. baker offers a clear account of the constitution view of the resurrection where persons just are identical with first-person perspectives constituted by their body. In lieu of this, persons can persist from death to resurrection, but this requires a Divine miracle whereby God recreates the body (pp. 168-169). The difficulty that is not mentioned is the notion that a first-person perspective is identical with the person, which seems to presuppose a distinct substance. on the constitution view the first-person perspective is an impure relation/property to the body, thus it cannot be a substance – arguably. relative properties require some sort of substance for the first-person perspective to exist, thus either the first-person-perspective supervenes on the bodily organism or there is another substance accounting for first-person perspective – i.e. a new entity. Secondly, the respective ontologies emphasizing either relation or substance are wisely considered. Theologically, a treatment of persons must consider objective and subjective matters that pertain to persons as dynamically interacting with reality. The reader will be introduced to this in Davis's discussion of the Divine will as a constituent of the person. more explicitly, brüntrup S.J. offers an ontology that construes the objective and subjective as intimates in contrast to a Cartesian ontology, whereby on brüntrup's view the subjective is rooted in an objective ontology of events. Creatively, both Schärtl and Haag seek to bring the objective and subjective closer when considering the brute nature of phenomenal selves. Haag seems to assume a transcendental version of substance dualism. Corcoran's essay offers another contribution to the discussion where he distinguishes between metaphysically necessary conditions and causal necessary requirements. Persons have necessary 200 booK reVIeWS AND NoTICeS conditions for being a certain kind of thing, but are also social beings that emerge by causal necessity. Corcoran argues that substance ontology has a kind of priority, yet not at the exclusion of a robust relational ontology. Finally, Christian Tapp's discussion on the resurrection exemplifies both objective and subjective truths when attempting to integrate them with a communitarian and dialogical understanding of persons. The third movement worthy of highlighting is the constructive developments concerning personal eschatology. Nikolaus Wandinger utilizes a traditional notion of purgatory, yet moves beyond some of its original dualistic assumptions. Contrasted with the traditional model, this model states that purgatory is purification for those who are heaven-bound, which he argues assumes that persons are necessarily embodied. robert John russell also exemplifies a movement by pressing on the bounds of scientific and theological discourse by considering the resurrection in relation to eschatology and cosmology. Inspired by Polkinghorne's thought on Jesus' resurrection, russell argues that the new earth will be transformed yet be continuous with the old earth. russell does not fail to mention this is in keeping the general sentiment of most contemporary theologians (p. 244). The most fascinating constructive addition is found in russell's building upon the notion of eschatology as prolepsis, from Pannenberg, and diagrammatically displaying what it might look like for there to be both continuity and discontinuity, the notion that the future results appear in the present and persist from that moment forward (p. 256). With the book's many contributory benefits, there are three criticisms worth mentioning. The first criticism is from the non-existent interaction with anti-realist or idealist views of physical matter. There does seem to be historical precedent in the likes of berkeley, malebranche and edwards – to name a few. Given the nature of the book's emergence from a conference, this may be expecting too much, but it would be nice to interact with the subject in a more balanced manner. There are two criticisms that flow out of a predominant tendency in the book. First, is the tendency toward non-reductive materialism as presupposed fact (p. 11). Surprisingly, while the reader may expect to see these assumptions in other philosophical disciplines – one does not expect to see this in a text of such a theological nature. A second, related criticism is the tendency to deny substance dualism outright as a viable option worthy of consideration, which the reader will recognize based upon a quick perusal of the contents. Ted Peters supports this bias in 201booK reVIeWS AND NoTICeS the foreword, when stating, "The non-dualist alternative explored in the pages that follow is the resurrection of the body (XII)." Neither Cartesian nor non-Cartesian versions of substance dualism find their way into the discussion. This dismissal is intimately tied to the perennial problem concerning bodily persistence faced in the book. Gasser in commenting on the views represented in the book, states: "No solution is able to preserve identity in the strict sense (p. 9)." If no view provides this kind of identity and personal identity depends upon a body that is strictly the same, then the materialist will have difficulty accounting for personal identity, as well, because for most versions of materialism personal identity is predicated upon same body/brain. Alternative solutions that are able to account for persistence of personal identity and, possibly bodily identity, include a form of immaterialism, substance dualism or Thomistic hylomorphism with the soul/form having ens per se kind of existence. both of these views account for personal identity by affirming an immaterial entity endures through somatic death to the physical resurrection. Nonetheless, how might they account for the body? one answer may be that an enduring soul only needs a similar body, or, alternatively, the soul provides the sufficient conditions for the new body. In the final analysis, it is clear that to dismiss dualist views of persons is unwarranted. unpopular though it may be, substance dualism has something to contribute to the contemporary discussion. DAN o'brIeN Oxford Brookes University Timothy Yoder. Hume on God: Irony, Deism and Genuine Theism. Continuum, 2008. The title of a recent biography of David Hume is The Great Infidel and almost all interpreters of Hume, from his contemporaries on, have taken him to be an atheist, agnostic or some kind of deist. In Hume's works, though, there are many instances of what Timothy Yoder calls 'affirmation passages' where Hume seems to acknowledge the existence of the traditional God of theism. These are usually written off as mere irony and seen as part of a strategy of concealment for reasons of prudence given the dangers of open avowal of atheism in the eighteenth century. much of Yoder's book focuses on these passages and on the purposes to which authors put various kinds of irony. He highlights 'covering