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Moreover, dualism introduces an unnecessary and inelegant cleavage into the natural world; and that is not something we should expect to find within creation. In other words, if human beings are the only creatures in the natural order to be endowed by God with souls, then we are not—all appearances to the contrary—of a piece with the rest of nature. Perhaps it is an aesthetic fondness for order, simplicity, and elegance, but I would expect the natural world, as a product of Divine creation, to be a bit more elegant and seamless than that suggested by dualism. And indeed nature seems to suggest as much. Canines no less than gorillas, and gorillas no less than humans, evidence behavior suggestive of a robust conscious life. If you don't have a dog yourself, just ask your friends who do about the apparent conscious life of a dog. Then there's Koko the gorilla, who seems not only to feel complex emotions but also to understand and utilize language (American Sign Language) to converse with her caretaker. In any case, these are just a few, albeit controversial, reasons why dualism about human persons is problematic.
If materialism is so natural and dualism so odd, why do Christians typically reject materialism? Part of the reason we may be uncomfortable with materialism is that we falsely assume there to be only one materialistic alternative to dualism. We might believe that if we're not immaterial and immortal souls, then we must be nothing more than human animals, physical organisms, or biological beasts. Dualism has such a grip on us that we cannot imagine that we are animals. On the other hand, many find it just obvious that we are animals; human animals, to be sure, but animals. And it's not difficult to understand why. We're not dogs, computers, or gods. We're human beings, for goodness sake; and a human being is, by definition, a kind of animal, a member of the species homo sapiens. Some secular thinkers, of course, positively revel in our being animals; they assume that if whatever is is physical, then human beings must be merely animals.
I propose that there is a kind a materialism available that accounts for our being animals without being merely animals. First some clarifying remarks. Though we are right to reject the reductionist's claim that whatever is is physical (we're theists, after all), it seems to me that the reductionist is at least partly right—we are human animals. However—and this may sound surprising—while we are human animals, we are not identical with human animals.
How can one be an animal without being identical with an animal? Think about it this way. I am willing to bet that most of you believe that a particular copper statue is constituted by a particular piece of copper. But I'm also willing to bet that you agree that the piece of copper could conceivably outlast the statue, that is, that the piece of copper could continue in existence even if the statue should not. Suppose, for example, that the piece of copper composing the statue is hammered flat. This would cause the statue to cease to exist but not the piece of copper. Moreover, the piece of copper could have existed for some time before the statue came into existence. The statue is a piece of copper even if it is not identical with the piece of copper. The statue can't be identical with the piece of copper because the piece of copper can exist without the statue existing.
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