Introduction
Hylemorphism is a thesis about the ontology of things in the world.Footnote 1 According to one way of understanding this view, physical concrete particulars are composites of metaphysical entities: form and prime matter (‘hyle’ being Greek for matter and ‘morphe’ being Greek for form). Living physical concrete particulars have a particular kind of form, usually called a ‘soul’.Footnote 2 Like the word ‘hylemorphism’ itself, wherein one word is composed of two, hylemorphism suggests that a material substance is one thing composed of two non-substantival metaphysical things. That is, hylemorphic substances are one thing strictly speaking, and this is, in part, because their respective matter and form do not exist apart from the substance in which they exist. A material substance, on this view, is neither identical to its form nor its matter. It is, instead, identical to its form/matter composite. Hylemorphists come to know about the prime matter and the form of a substance via abstraction, not by seeing the form and matter on their own existing out in the world. On this sort of view, if a substance S is a hylemorphic substance, then S exists only if its form informs prime matter. If S is a living substance, then S exists only if its soul – as the substantial form of a living substance – informs prime matter, resulting in a living body. To put it a pithy way: for physical/material substances, there is no matter without form and no form without matter. I suggest that this is one way to understand Thomas Aquinas on the matter, and so we can call it a ‘broadly Thomistic’ view.Footnote 3
Rigid designators, on the other hand, are – most often – proper names applied to concrete particulars that exist (or might exist). These proper names refer to the same particular object in every possible world in which the object exists (Kripke (Reference Kripke1972), 48ff.; LaPorte (Reference LaPorte and Zalta2018) ). For example: as a rigid designator, ‘Socrates’ names one particular human person who happened to exist in the actual world and who, in the actual world, was Plato's teacher. Note that the name ‘Socrates’, understood as a rigid designator, is not synonymous with a definite description of Socrates like, say, ‘Plato's teacher’. Here's why: this description of Socrates isn't essential to him. It doesn't pick him out in every possible world; for Plato's teacher might have been someone else. But ‘Socrates’ – insofar as we deploy it as a rigid designator for that one man – applies to that one man in every possible world in which he exists. Here in the actual world, when one thinks about Socrates in some other world, one can call that man ‘Socrates’. One might say something like the following and know exactly whom it's about: ‘Socrates in that other world’. And one can do this and refer directly to that one man even if it turns out that, in the other world, Socrates was called ‘Setarcos’. Additionally, though I might have named my dog ‘Socrates’ (I didn't), ‘Socrates’ on this conception – when one is thinking about it as a rigid designator – names that one man who, in fact, was Plato's teacher. It names him, too, in other possible worlds in which Socrates isn't a philosopher at all. As the proper name of that one man, it designates him across all possible worlds in which he exists. At least, this is the normal way of thinking of rigid designators (LaPorte (Reference LaPorte and Zalta2018) ).
On this understanding of rigid designators, it is plausible to suggest that ‘Jesus’, ‘Christ’, and/or ‘Jesus Christ’ names a particular Jewish man who lived in first-century Palestine, was the son of Mary ‘and (as was supposed) of Joseph’ (Luke 3:23).Footnote 4 Importantly, according to the Christian story, this Jesus is the one God, viz. YHWH, incarnate. In any case, it seems intuitive to think that ‘Jesus’, as a rigid designator, picks out that one human, and it picks him out across all possible worlds in which he might exist. In this sense, ‘Jesus’, as a rigid designator, functions differently from ‘God the Son’. ‘God the Son’, if it picks out anyone, picks out the Second Person of the Trinity. ‘Jesus’, too might be thought to pick out the Second Person of the Trinity, since, on an orthodox Christology, there's just one person in the Incarnation and that Person is the Second Person of the Trinity. But, I submit that ‘Jesus’ functions differently from ‘God the Son’, in the sense that ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates a human. God the Son exists in every possible world, but Jesus does not. But if ‘God the Son’ and ‘Jesus’ rigidly designate the same object, and the object called ‘God the Son’ exists in every possible world, then so does the object called ‘Jesus’. I take it that it is false that Jesus exists in every possible world.Footnote 5
If one assumes this sort of hylemorphism and this understanding of rigid designators, particularly the rigid designator ‘Jesus’, I propose that there's a puzzle that needs sorting out. For, according to some Christian understandings, the human Jesus is a hylemorphic substance understood in the above Thomistic sort of way. He, insofar as he is a human, is a composite of form and matter (i.e. ‘soul and body’). Thus, Aquinas (Reference Aquinas1981) argues for just this understanding in Article 5 of Question 2 in the tertia pars of his Summa Theologiae. On the other hand, on the (Holy) Saturday following his crucifixion, some Christians understand Jesus to have descended – denuded of a material cause (so, sans body) – to Hades or Limbus Patrum to preach the good news of his victory to the patriarchs of the faith. The claim is that Jesus did this. Let's call this interim state between Jesus’ death and resurrection the ‘Descent State’: DS. Thus a puzzle emerges. For, how could Jesus go to DS if the form/matter composite – the hylemorphic substance – that the rigid designator Jesus picks out doesn't exist after his death and before his resurrection (for his hylemorphic compound has been rent asunder at death)? I will argue that Jesus could not. That is, I will argue that, given this understanding of hylemorphism and rigid designation, it is impossible that Jesus exists in DS; so, he could not have descended as Jesus to free the captive patriarchs on Holy Saturday. Thus, I will suggest that Christians who are hylemorphists and think that Jesus went to DS need to clarify their view.
To argue for my thesis, first, I will provide evidence that some Christian thinkers argue both for the particular kind of hylemorphism I have in mind and that Jesus went to DS. Additionally, I'll briefly outline ‘survivalism’ and ‘corruptionism’, two ways in which Thomist hylemorphists (broadly construed) conceive of the afterlife of a human soul.Footnote 6 Second, I articulate the conceptual implications survivalism and corruptionism bring to bear on the puzzle. Third, I argue that the best candidate on offer to explain how Jesus went to DS, viz. survivalism, fails in the end to explain how Jesus went to DS. Thus, if a broadly Thomistic understanding of hylemorphism and the normal understanding of rigid designation are true, then Jesus did not go to DS. In the final section, I conclude.
Hylemorphists and the descent of Jesus's disembodied soul/form
The Christian thinkers I have in mind follow Thomas Aquinas in thinking that Jesus, the human, is a form/matter composite. In my view, they understand Thomas rightly. Here's part of Thomas's answer to ‘Whether in Christ there is any union of Soul and Body?’:
The body is not said to be animated save from its union with the soul. Now the body of Christ is said to be animated, as the Church chants: ‘Taking an animate body, He deigned to be born of a Virgin’ . . . Christ is called a man univocally with other men . . . Now it belongs essentially to the human species that the soul be united to the body, for the form does not constitute the species, except inasmuch as it becomes the act of matter . . . Hence it must be said that in Christ the soul was united to the body; and the contrary is heretical, since it destroys the truth of Christ's humanity. (Aquinas (Reference Aquinas1981), III.Q2.a5. sed contra and respondeo)
He further says:
There are two principles of corporeal life: one the effective principle, and in this way the Word of God is the principle of all life; the other, the formal principle of life, for since ‘in living things to be is to live,’ as the Philosopher says (De Anima ii, 37), just as everything is formally by its form, so likewise the body lives by the soul: in this way a body could not live by the Word, which cannot be the form of a body. (Aquinas (Reference Aquinas1981), III.Q2.a5.ad3)
On my reading, according to Aquinas, insofar as Jesus is a human being, Jesus is a composite of soul and body.Footnote 7 Now, if this is a correct reading of Aquinas, one must take ‘body’ to be a less-than-ideally-nuanced synonym for ‘matter’. I say it's ‘less than ideal’ because ‘matter’ isn't a univocal term on Thomas's brand of scholastic hylemorphism.Footnote 8 There's prime matter, that which is pure potentiality and unobservable in its own right. And then there's secondary, proximate, or signate matter: the normal ‘stuff’ one sees with one's eyes or under a microscope (Brower (Reference Brower, Davis and Stump2012), 89–97; Feser (Reference Feser2014), 171–172).Footnote 9 This second kind of matter is what we ‘moderns’ (if you like) normally think of when we think of matter. It's material ‘stuff’. In any case, a ‘body’ on Thomas's view strictly speaking is actually a form/prime matter composite. It's the actualized result of, among other things, a formal and material cause, both of which are metaphysical principles, not things ‘observable under a microscope’. So, ‘body’ in the above quotes is used in a less strict and nuanced way than it might otherwise be. At least, so I say.
Now, what's important here is that Thomas is clear that, with respect to Jesus’ being human, his being human is metaphysically identical to the way in which every human is a human being. That is, every human is a composite of form and matter (or ‘soul’ and ‘body’).Footnote 10 A human being, on this view, is neither its soul/form nor its matter. The upshot is that, insofar as Jesus is a human, he is neither his soul/form nor his matter. He is, qua human, the hylemorphic compound that results in a living human organism, a human being.Footnote 11
By my lights, ‘Jesus’, ‘Christ’, and/or ‘Jesus Christ’ names this particular human being. So, on this hylemorphic account, ‘Jesus’ names and rigidly designates a particular form/matter substance. ‘Jesus’ neither designates his form nor his matter since a human being is a form/matter composite and neither individually form nor matter.
It's possible, though, that Aquinas would disagree with this sort of assessment. He considers, for example, the question whether the ‘whole Christ’ was in DS (Aquinas (Reference Aquinas1981), III.Q52.a3).Footnote 12 He argues that, indeed, the ‘whole Christ’ was in DS. He says: ‘it must be affirmed that during the three days of Christ's death the whole Christ was in the tomb, because the whole Person was there through the body united with Him, and likewise He was entirely in hell, because the whole Person of Christ was there by reason of the soul united with Him’ (ibid., III.Q52.a3 respondeo; my emphasis). By ‘hell’, he means the limbo of the fathers, the post-mortem location of the just Old Testament patriarchs of the faith (e.g. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) (ibid., III.Q52.a2). So, we can understand Aquinas to mean that Jesus was in DS. On this account, Jesus survives the death of his human organism and so the ‘whole Christ remained’, even though Aquinas admits in the same article that ‘[c]onsequently when death severed the union of the soul with the body . . . His whole human nature did not remain’ (ibid., III.Q52.a3.ad2). It's plausible to read Aquinas then as disagreeing with my understanding of that to which the rigid designator ‘Jesus’ refers. For, if a human being on a hylemorphic account is a form/matter composite, and if Aquinas thinks that Jesus continues to exist after the destruction of Jesus’ form/matter composite, then it follows from Aquinas's position that ‘Jesus’ does not rigidly designate a human being.
Some contemporary Christians seem to agree: ‘Jesus’ does not rigidly designate a human being. Matthew Levering, for example, is a Christian hylemorphist who affirms that the disembodied Jesus entered DS. He says, among other things, that ‘Jesus’ entrance into the intermediate state inaugurates the liberation of the holy Israelites who were there waiting for him’ (Levering (Reference Levering2012), 16), and ‘[l]ike all the dead, Jesus in his separated soul went to the intermediate state to await the resurrection of his flesh. In the intermediate state he encounters the saints of Israel and those non-Israelites united to holy Israel by faith in God’ (ibid., 22). Again, following Aquinas, he asserts:
According to Aquinas, then, when Jesus died and his soul (united hypostatically to the divine nature in the Person of the Son) entered the intermediate state, he freed the saints of Israel to enjoy fully the divine presence that they sought. He thereby inaugurated the restoration of Israel, the holy people. (ibid., 23)Footnote 13
And this is so, according to Levering, even though ‘[w]hen Jesus’ body and soul were rent asunder in the terrible crucible of death, Jesus was a dead man but not, strictly speaking, a ‘man’, since to be human means to be a body–soul unity’ (ibid., 142–143 n. 46; my emphasis).
It's clear then that Levering assumes, with Aquinas, that Jesus went to DS but that he didn't go as a human being. Aquinas and Levering are not alone in thinking that a disembodied Jesus descended to DS, of course. Their Roman Catholic Church appears to teach the same. The Catechism of the Catholic Church asserts: ‘In his human soul united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven's gates for the just who had gone before him’ (Catholic Church (1999), §637).Footnote 14 If the Catechism follows Aquinas's understanding of the human being, then it assumes that Jesus, in his human hylemorphic soul, went to DS.
Survivalism and corruptionism
Among Christian thinkers who purport to follow Thomas's version of hylemorphism, there are generally two camps into which they fall concerning how one is to understand a human's post-mortem survival: corruptionism or survivalism. Survivalists affirm something like the following:
Survivor (SVR): For any human being, h, h survives the death of her form/matter composite if and only if h’s soul survives the death of her form/matter composite.
Contrarily, corruptionists affirm something like this:
Corruption (CPN): For any human being, h, h exists if and only if her form/matter composite exists.
There are at least three important things to note about SVR and CPN. First, two metaphysical points: 1. SVR and CPN are consistent with each other in that, for both, a necessary condition of a human's existence is the existence of her soul/form. 2. SVR and CPN are inconsistent with each other in that, on SVR, the survival of one's human soul/form is sufficient for one's existence, while, on CPN, the existence of one's soul is insufficient for one's existence. Second, it is consistent with the positions of both camps that, given Thomas's hylemorphism, one's disembodied soul continues to exist after the death of one's form/matter composite. So much is obvious on SVR, of course. But it's important to note that this is consistent with CPN; for those who hold to CPN agree that Thomas affirms that a human's soul survives the death of her body.Footnote 15 Third, both camps insist that they're following Thomas's teaching on the matter. On the survivalist's side of the argument, there are worries that CPN undermines Thomas's understanding of God's justice vis-à-vis the rewards/punishments meted out to one's disembodied soul in the interim state.Footnote 16 They ask: why should a soul, who is not the human, get rewarded or punished for the deeds of a human?Footnote 17 On the other hand, corruptionists worry that SVR undermines Thomas's argument for the necessity of the bodily resurrection. For if the human being survives the death of her body/soul composite, then it follows that the resurrection of her body/soul composite is not necessary for eternal life.Footnote 18
For the purposes of this article, I wish not to attempt to adjudicate which of these positions Aquinas affirms. Instead, I draw attention to this debate because it helps illuminate the puzzle with which I'm concerned in this article. Is it possible, given this Thomistic sort of hylemorphism, for Jesus to exist in the Descent State? I say ‘no’.Footnote 19 But, before we get to my defence of this answer, allow me to draw out how the corruptionist/survivalist debate bears on the present puzzle.
Who or what survives Jesus’ death?
SVR and the disembodied Jesus
Suppose that SVR is true. If so, and if Jesus’ human soul goes to DS, then it follows that God the Son qua human being survives the death of his form/matter composite. If the proper name ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates this particular human being, then ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates Jesus’ human soul, for the human soul is the human being. Now, the ‘is’ deployed in the previous sentence is vague. For, on at least one popular account (Eleonore Stump's), survivalism understands this ‘is’ to be an ‘is’ of constitution rather than an ‘is’ of identity. And this constitution should be understood according to the sort of account that Lynne Rudder Baker famously offers wherein constitution ≠ identity (Baker (Reference Baker1997); Idem (Reference Baker1999); Idem (Reference Baker2000); Idem (Reference Baker2007); Stump (Reference Stump, Davis and Stump2012), 460ff.). So, on this view, the human being, Jesus, is constituted by, but not identical with, his human soul. Importantly, on this sort of view of constitution, the constitution relation is an accidental relation, rather than essential (Baker (Reference Baker1999), 147). So, it is only accidentally the case that the human being, Jesus, is constituted by his human soul. Finally, there seems to be a further interesting question here: are Jesus, the human being, and Jesus’ human soul numerically the same object? Given Baker's constitution metaphysics, Jesus, the human being, and Jesus’ human soul are numerically the same object; but they are not identical. Whether such a sentiment is coherent, I'll leave to one side.Footnote 20
What is important is that, if this understanding of SVR and Jesus’ survival is coherent, it becomes unclear what or whom the name ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates. Here's why. Suppose we use ‘Yeshua’ and ‘JHS’ as two rigid designators for Jesus’ human substantial form. Given the normal understanding of rigid designation, Yeshua = JHS. Think here of Kripke's classic Hesperus = Phosphorus example (Kripke (Reference Kripke1972), 102–105; LaPorte (Reference LaPorte and Zalta2018) ). If so, then Yeshua and JHS pick out the identical object, viz. Jesus’ human substantial form. That is, Yeshua and JHS are identical. If this is the case, however, it looks like ‘Jesus’ cannot be a rigid designator for Jesus’ human substantial form. This is so because, if ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates Jesus’ human substantial form, then Jesus = Yeshua = JHS would be true (compare: Hesperus = Phosphorus = Venus). If so, ‘Jesus’ would be the name of a thing that is identical with a human soul, which would provide for a seemingly odd upshot: on a ‘constitution ≠ identity’ SVR account, Jesus’ human soul is not identical to a human being; rather, it constitutes one. Thus, Jesus would not be identical to a human being; he(?) would constitute one.
On the other hand, if ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates a human being, then ‘Jesus’ (the same rigid designator) does not rigidly designate a human soul. For, if the name ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates both his human soul and a particular human being, then Jesus’ human soul and the human being would be identical, a thesis that (it seems) a constitution account of SVR denies. So, given a constitution account of SVR, either ‘Jesus’ picks out Jesus’ human soul or else ‘Jesus’ picks out a human being.
I submit that the survivalist of this constitutionist stripe will want to say that ‘Jesus’ picks out a human being. To see why, consider the following statement such a survivalist might say: ‘Jesus went to free the captive souls of the patriarchs and bring them to Paradise.’ Or consider these words from Aquinas: ‘I answer that it was fitting for Christ to descend into hell . . . Consequently since it was fitting for Christ to die in order to deliver us from death, so it was fitting for Him to descend into hell in order to deliver us also from going down into hell’ (Aquinas (Reference Aquinas1981), III.Q52.a1 respondeo).
Let's consider the first statement: ‘Jesus went to free the captive souls of the patriarchs and bring them to Paradise.’ Just what is this statement supposed to mean? I take it that many would understand it to mean, including survivalists of the constitution sort, that Jesus, a particular human being, went to DS to preach to the captive OT patriarchs. And I think they would understand this in such a way that ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates an object identical to a particular human being. For, if they do not mean this, then they mean that ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates an object identical to Jesus’ human soul, the thing that constitutes a human being (a human being not named ‘Jesus’, apparently). There are two untoward consequences of this: one is that ‘Jesus’ would be the name of the thing that is accidentally, rather than essentially, related to the human being in question (whoever it is). The second would be that one would not know the name of the human being in question; one would just know the name of the soul that constitutes the human being. At least because of these untoward consequences, I take it that these sorts of survivalists will understand ‘Jesus’ to name a particular human being. And, if so, then they understand ‘Jesus’ rigidly to designate an object that's identical with the human being, Jesus.Footnote 21
CPN and the disembodied Jesus
Now suppose that CPN is true: For any human being, h, h exists if and only if her form/matter composite exists. It follows from CPN that, if Jesus survives the death of his form/matter composite, then Jesus is not a human being in DS. It follows further from this that ‘Jesus’ does not rigidly designate a human being. For, ex hypothesi, Jesus exists but his form/matter composite (i.e. the human being) does not.
The corruptionist can go in one of two directions here. Option one: ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates the human soul of Jesus; so, the object that ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates is identical to Jesus’ human soul. Option two: ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates a human being; but, if so, then, given CPN, Jesus does not exist in DS, even though his human soul does.
I do not think that either of these options bodes well for the corruptionist who wishes to endorse the theological claim that Jesus went to DS. Consider what option one implies: ‘Jesus’ does not name a human being. If that's true, then we don't know the name of the human being that walked around Palestine in the first century, died for the sins of the world, and resurrected from the dead. The Bible calls this human ‘Jesus’; but, given option one, this is not accurate. On the other hand, option two undercuts the theological claim that Jesus went to DS to free the captive patriarchs of the faith. Jesus’ soul might have gone to the limbo of the Fathers; but Jesus did not. Thomas Aquinas (Reference Aquinas1981, III.Q52.a4.ad3) thinks that Jesus is telling a very literal truth when he assures the robber on the cross that ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’ (Luke 23:43). It is plausible that those thinkers who purport to agree with Aquinas here also think that Jesus is telling a very literal truth. But, on option two, he is not. At least, he is not if the ‘me’ in Luke 23:43 is Jesus.Footnote 22
At this point in the dialectic, if one is to endorse, with Aquinas, the theological claim that Jesus went to DS, it looks as if one is better off being a survivalist. For, prima facie, it seems that, on survivalism, one can know the name of the human being who died for the sins of the world and rose from the dead as well as know the name of the human who went to DS to free the captive patriarchs, viz. Jesus. Ultima facie, however, things do not look as promising.
Could Jesus have gone to DS?
An answer to this section's title: given Thomistic hylemorphism (of the kind of I've outlined), the answer is no. To begin my argument, consider again how we ended the analysis of the survivalist position (the one of the constitutionist stripe). I concluded that the constitutionist survivalist will affirm that ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates a particular human being. Recall, though, that, on the brand of hylemorphism running through this article, a human being is a form/matter composite. A human being is neither its form nor its matter. It is neither identical with either component nor is it constituted by either component. It is either identical to or constituted by a form/matter composite. But SVR says this:
SVR: For any human being, h, h survives the death of her form/matter composite if and only if h’s soul survives the death of her form/matter composite.
SVR implies that a human being is not a form/matter composite. For if it is, then the survival of a human being's soul alone would not be sufficient for a human being's survival. What's gone wrong? There are two possibilities. Either SVR has an incorrect understanding of a human being or else hylemorphism does not include the claim that a human being is a form/matter composite. Let us consider each possibility in turn.
Option one: SVR has an incorrect understanding of a human being. If so, how might one amend SVR to make sure it is consistent with hylemorphism but also consistent with the claim that Jesus descended to DS? Consider this revision:
SVRHP: For any human person, hp, hp survives the death of her form/matter composite if and only if hp’s soul survives the death of her form/matter composite.
Suppose that ‘Jones’ rigidly designates a human person. SVRHP provides a way consistently to hold two claims: (a) Jones survives the death of her form/matter composite if and only if her soul survives, and (b) if Jones is a human being (where a human being and a human person are different things), then Jones must be a form/matter composite. On an SVRHP way of thinking, either Jones is a human person that is identical to a human soul (that is not identical to a form/matter composite) or else Jones is a human person that is constituted by a human soul.Footnote 23 I understand the former to be inconsistent with Thomistic hylemorphism.Footnote 24 So, let us assume that the latter is a more accurate way of representing SVRHP.
Will SVRHP work in the case of Jesus? Not obviously. For, in Christology, it is commonplace to eschew saying that Jesus is a human person simpliciter. Rather, he is understood either to be a divine person with a human nature or else a theanthropic person (a person with a divine nature and a human nature). Here I follow Oliver Crisp's reasoning:
The use of the phrase ‘theanthropic person of Christ’ (that is, the God-Mannish person of Christ) guards against claiming that Christ is a human person, which seems rather odd at first glance. But I take it that a constituent of Chalcedonian Christology is that Christ is a divine person possessing a human nature, not both a divine and a human person, or merely a human person, both of which would be theologically unorthodox. (Crisp (Reference Crisp2007), 8 n. 13)Footnote 25
Why are these options theologically unorthodox? On pain of Nestorianism, Christ is not both a divine person and a human person. On pain of denying the divinity of Christ, Christ is not merely a human person. Perhaps, though, there is yet another way to amend SVR, a way that accommodates the divine survivor. Consider:
SVRP: For any person, p, p survives the death of her form/matter composite if and only p’s soul survives the death of her form/matter composite.
Now, there's something too broad about SVRP. After all, not all persons are form/matter composites. The Triune God of Christianity, for example, is not a form/matter composite. Nevertheless, there might be a way to amend still further SVRP such that it is more obviously consistent with not every person being a form/matter composite and that applies specifically to human survival. We can modify it this way:
SVRPH: For any person, p, if p is a person with a human nature, then p survives the death of her form/matter composite if and only if p’s soul survives the death of her form/matter composite.
What should one make of SVRPH? SVRPH is consistent with constitution metaphysics (wherein a human person would be a person constituted by a human nature) and more run-of-the-mill metaphysics that think that human persons are identical to individual instances of human nature. Moreover, at first glance, one can insert ‘God the Son’ for ‘p’ and give a clearly orthodox Christology. For all SVRPH commits one to is persons with a human nature. Classical Christology assumes that God the Son has a human nature in the Incarnation. Thus, SVRPH is consistent either with conceiving of Jesus as a divine person with a human nature or else conceiving of him as a theanthropic person. These are points in favour of SVRPH over the competing SVRs. On the other hand, however, SVRPH is too strong. For, contra SVRPH, in order for God the Son – the person in the Incarnation – to survive it is not necessary that his human soul does. God the Son is immortal in virtue of the fact that he is a (even the) necessarily existing divine being. As such, God the Son is a clear counterexample to SVRPH. Thus, option one, that SVR has an incorrect understanding of a human being, seems to have run out of room.
Now, a reviewer notes that potentially there is a way to get around this problem with SVRPH. And that's to add a qualifier, ‘qua person with a human nature’, in the following way:
SVRPH*: For any person, p, if p is a person with a human nature, then p survives qua person with a human nature the death of her form/matter composite if and only if p’s soul survives the death of her form/matter composite.Footnote 26
Adding the qua person with a human nature qualifier to SVRPH* clearly gets around the problem of the Son's necessary existence that acts as a counterexample to SVRPH. And it provides room for an orthodox Christology. For, as with SVRPH, SVRPH* is consistent either with conceiving of Jesus as a divine person with a human nature or else conceiving of him as a theanthropic person. But this proposal slides from option one (that SVR has an incorrect understanding of human beings) into option two: hylemorphism does not include the claim that a human being is a form/matter composite. Why? The amended qualifier suggests that a person survives qua person with a human nature the death of her form/matter composite if and only if her soul survives the composite's death. But that makes a soul necessary and sufficient for being a person with a human nature. And that's just to say that having only one's soul is sufficient for having a human nature, a thing one can have only if one's human nature exists. If that's consistent with hylemorphism, then hylemorphism does not include the claim that a human being is a form/matter composite because a human being just is an existing concrete instance of a human nature. Thus option two: hylemorphism does not include the claim that a human being is a form/matter composite.
What should one say about this option (option two): that hylemorphism does not include the claim that a human being is a form/matter composite? In answer, I do not know how to affirm the truth of the proposition ‘that hylemorphism does not include the claim that a human being is a form/matter composite’ in a manner consistent with the sort of Thomistic hylemorphism I've been working with and that the thinkers with which I have been interacting assume. Rather, I take it that it is, given the sort of hylemorphism with which I've been working, axiomatically false. What it is to be a human being just is to be a specific kind of hylemorphic substance of form and matter. But, if so, then no human being is in DS even if a human person is (at least, if one's being in DS implies one's being without matter).
Where a human being is understood to be a form/matter composite, there are two arguments we can advance, the first of which is a reductio. Here they are in turn:
1. Jesus went to DS (assumption for reductio).
2. If ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates a human being, then, given this sort of hylemorphism, Jesus did not go to DS.
3. Therefore, ‘Jesus’ does not rigidly designate a human being. (1, 2 MT)
4. If (3) is true, then ‘Jesus’ is not the name of the human being that died for the sins of the world and resurrected on Easter Sunday.
5. ‘Jesus’ is the name of the human being that died for the sins of the world and resurrected on Easter Sunday.
6. Therefore, (3) is false (4, 5 MT). This is a contradiction; so, the reductio assumption is false. Jesus did not go to DS.
And
7. If ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates only a human soul, then ‘Jesus’ does not rigidly designate a human being.
8. If ‘Jesus’ does not rigidly designate a human being, then ‘Jesus’ is not the name of the human being that died for the sins of the world and resurrected on Easter Sunday.
5. ‘Jesus’ is the name of the human being that died for the sins of the world and resurrected on Easter Sunday.
9. ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates a human being.
2. If ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates a human being, then, given this sort of hylemorphism, Jesus did not go to DS.
10. Thus, Jesus did not go to DS (9, 2 MP).
The conclusions to each argument, as one can see, are the same. If I have the hylemorphist's picture correct, then the only tendentious premise is (5). But what Christian wants to challenge that premise? For, on the Christian story, it is at the name of Jesus that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he, viz. Jesus Christ, is Lord (Phil. 2:10) precisely because ‘Jesus’ names the human being who died for the sins of the world and resurrected on Easter Sunday.
Instead of objecting to (5), I think that Christians who affirm that the person of God the Son was in the DS in some interesting non-trivial sense (it's trivially true that God the Son as a divine person is in DS (if there exists such a ‘place’) insofar as he is omnipresent and is everywhere that's anywhere) should affirm merely (that is, bracketing out consideration of his divine omnipresence) that God the Son was in DS as a human soul. This is consistent with survivalist and corruptionist accounts, and I think it is part and parcel of what both camps affirm. But here's the important consequence of my argument: Jesus, strictly speaking, was not in the DS. At best, Jesus’ soul was. And thus the call for clarification: one should either refrain from calling that soul that freed the captive patriarchs ‘Jesus’ or else be clear that, at most, the name ‘Jesus’ is being deployed, with reference to Holy Saturday, in the way that Thomas seems to think one can pray to the saints by name, viz. wherein the name of the saint acts as a synecdoche.Footnote 27 For if the name ‘Jesus’ rigidly designates a human being, it does not rigidly designate Jesus’ human soul.
Conclusion
I've argued that, given a broadly Thomistic hylemorphic view of human beings, Jesus was not in the disembodied intermediate state, the DS. Jesus did not descend to Hades/Hell/Limbus Patrum to free the captives. At best, his soul did, and the Person of God the Son through it. Perhaps that's enough for certain Christian purposes; but I leave that for others to consider. For, it is the case that those who affirm that Christ descended to the DS seem to think it important that it was Christ who did so. At least one reason is that Christ's descent to DS is affirmed in at least some translations of the Apostles’ Creed. I take it that this is probably one reason why Aquinas, for example, entertains an extended discussion on the matter. But, if, given this sort of broadly Thomistic hylemorphism, it was not Christ, then these thinkers need better to clarify their positions or else understand better if their positions lack something critical if, indeed, Christ did not descend. As such, I take it that there's at least one important upshot from this article: it provides a further research project for those thinkers who affirm a Thomistic sort of hylemorphism and the descent of Jesus the Christ to DS.Footnote 28
