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Academic Background

Brandon Rickabaugh Lecture

I earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Baylor University, specializing in the nature of human persons, consciousness, artificial minds, and our capacity to know ourselves, each other, and God. I also trained in neuroscience to investigate the empirical foundations of consciousness and moral development.

 

From 2021 to 2024, I served as Associate Professor and Research Scholar in Philosophy of Technology and Culture at Palm Beach Atlantic University. I’ve taught at several universities, including Baylor, Biola, and Azusa Pacific, and was named one of Baylor’s Top 40 Most Impactful Faculty, a reminder that ideas still move people.

 

My research has been supported by grants from the John Templeton Foundation, the Martin Institute, and a $200,000 Presidential Research Grant. I’ve published with Oxford and Wiley-Blackwell, spoken at Oxford, Yale, Berkeley, and Cambridge. 

My Vision

Motivations

I'm driven by questions that need life-sustaining answers: 

 

  • Who/what are we? 

  • What are we made for? 

  • How do we live a meaningful life?

  •  How can we know the answers to these questions?

 

We’re trading the reality of God and the soul for the myth that technology will save us and calling it progress. In the process, we lose the knowledge and courage to speak meaningfully about ourselves—mind, body, and soul—and about the brilliant and beautiful life we can live together.

 

I work to help recover this knowledge. To make it public, and testable.

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My Philosophical Convictions

and why they matter

​Reality

Reality is objective, stable, mind-independent, with physical and immaterial features. Our perception or social construction does not determine reality.

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Why this matters: Claims about what is real and how to live in love and justice aren’t preferences. They can be tested against reality for truth, for success and failure, making genuine knowledge and accountability possible.

Main Concerns

Knowledge

Knowledge is a lived grasp of reality based on various kinds of thought and experience. Knowledge is a normal, indispensable aspect of life.

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Why? Knowledge anchors us to the way things are, guiding choices, convictions, and communities. Knowledge gives faith/trust substance, reshapes character, and empowers responsible action in the face of moral complexity. 

Human Nature

The human person is an irreducible unity—a bodily soul—marked by uniquely human dynamics of will, mind, emotion, body, and social life, all of which are ordered or disordered by the health of its soul.

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Why? It means we are not reducible to neurochemistry or physics, nor mere social constructs. How we think about these inner dimensions shapes what we think is real and possible for humanity, defining our politics, families, and faith.

Meaning & Beauty

Meaning, goodness, and beauty are not individual or social inventions, but realities woven into the fabric of reality, discoverable, and creatively revealed.

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Why? Because value, meaning, and beauty are objective, they cannot be reduced or simulated. Our practices, policies, and technologies should align with meaning and beauty, not exploit them to manipulate others for profit.

 Human Flourishing

Every person is being shaped in their character or inner life, either toward or away from flourishing. Life in the Way of Jesus is the clearest vision of human flourishing and a publicly testable source of knowledge.

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Why? Formation is unavoidable. We can come to know if Jesus’ claims about humanity, himself, and ultimate reality are true by testing them in life. Spiritual practices can be evaluated across worldviews by their power to form character and nurture moral transformation.

Research Profile

Primary Projects

1. Prospects and Problems for AI Reasoning and Consciousness

Project 1A: Argue that the indivisible unity of consciousness requires a simple subject and therefore cannot be instantiated in AI systems composed of virtual parts.

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Project 1B: Show that rationality and intentionality are irreducible to computation, exposing why AI cannot count as a genuine reasoning agent.​

2. The Soul & Intelligibility of Spiritual and Moral Formation

Project 2A: Develop a theory of imagination as a soul-powered faculty that explains how practices like silence and solitude, liturgy, and moral vision formative.

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Project 2B: Construct a faculty-level ontology of the soul—will, heart, mind, body, and social dimensions—that explains the dynamics of spiritual and moral formation.

3. The Impact of AI on Cultural Visions of the Human Person

Project 3A: Trace how technological metaphors and AI companions obscure the soul and reduce persons to functional categories.

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Project 3B: Develop a soul-aware philosophy of technology that guides the design of tools fostering irreducible personhood and human flourishing.

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Research Map

My research is guided by a unified vision of reality, where questions of soul, consciousness, technology, and culture interconnect.​ This holistic approach seeks clarity and coherence, revealing deeper patterns that shape human life and guide our future.

Representation of the interconnections between my areas of research and how they all trace back to the nature of consciousness and the soul.

Brandon Rickabaugh Research Mind Map
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Curriculum Vitae

(selected Academic Achievements)

Contact me for my full CV

Brandon Rickabaugh, PhD

Education

Ph.D., Philosophy, Baylor University (2020)     

MA, Philosophy, Baylor University (2018)

MA, Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, Biola University (2013)

BA, Philosophy, University of California, Irvine (2010)

Positions

Positions
Held

  • Associate Professor of Philosophy, Palm Beach Atlantic University (2021-2025)

  • Research Scholar of Philosophy of Technology and Culture, Palm Beach Atlantic University (2021-2025)

  • Research Fellow, Accountability as a Relational Virtue Project, Baylor University (2020-2021).

  • Graduate Fellow, SCP Science Cross-Training (neuroscience), John Templeton Foundation (2018-2019).

Grants

  • Small Department Lecture Grant ($1,500), Society of Christian Philosophers (2024)

  • Presidential Research Grant ($200,000), Palm Beach Atlantic University (2021-2024).

  • Research/Writing Grant ($26,000), EIDOS Christian Center (2022-2023).

  • Cultura Project ($12,500), Martin Institute & John Templeton Foundation (2021-2022).

  • Cultura Project ($40,000), Martin Institute & John Templeton Foundation (2019-2021).

  • SCP Science Cross-Training - Neuroscience ($36,000), John Templeton Foundation (2018-2019).

Honors &
Awards

  • Dallas Willard Research Book Award (for The Substance of Consciousness), with J. P. Moreland, Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture/Dallas Willard Center, Westmont College (2025)

  • IVP Early-Career Philosopher of Religion, Tyndale House, University of Cambridge (2022).

  • Outstanding Dissertation of the Year, Baylor University (2020).

  • First time awarded to a doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy.

  • Outstanding Dissertation of the Year, Department of Philosophy, Baylor University (2020).

  • Harold O. J. Brown Award for Student Scholarship, C. F. H. Henry Center (2019).

  • Named Among the Top 40 Most Impactful Faculty, Baylor University (2018-2019). 

  • First time awarded to a doctoral candidate.

  • 2018 Dallas Willard Center Research Award (2018).           

  • Best Graduate Student Paper, Society of Christian Philosophers, Mountain-Pacific (2019).

  • Best Grad Student Paper, Evangelical Philosophical Society, Midwest (2018).

  • Fellowship Award, Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies, St. Julian’s, Malta (2018).

  • 2017 Graduate Student Paper of the Year, Evangelical Philosophical Society (2017).

  • Best Grad Student Paper, Evangelical Philosophical Society, Southwest (2016).

  • Conyers Graduate Scholarship, Baylor University (2016).

  • Best Grad Student Paper, Evangelical Philosophical Society, Midwest (2016).          

  • Academic Excellence Award, Biola University (2013).   

  • Best Graduate Student Paper, Evangelical Philosophical Society, Midwest (2013).

  • Best Graduate Student Paper, Evangelical Philosophical Society, Midwest (2012).

Publications

Books

  1. The Substance of Consciousness: A Comprehensive Defense of Contemporary Substance Dualism, with J. P. Moreland (Wiley-Blackwell, 2023).

  2. The Unity of Consciousness and Self: Minds, Machines, and Bodily Souls (Bloomsbury, forthcoming, 2026).

  3. What is Consciousness? A New Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind (IVP Academic, under contract).

Publications

Journal Articles
Peer-Reviewd

  1. ​“Consciousness and Fundamental Fine-Tuning.” Faith and Philosophy 41(2) (2025): 197–222.

  2. “There Is No Us in Consciousness.” Metaphysica 26(1) (2025): 155-173. Link

  3. “Normative Reasons, Epistemic Autonomy, and Accountability to God.” Religions 14 (2) (2023), 662. Link

  4. “Being-Thrown or Being-Guided into Spiritual Timekeeping: Smith and Willard, Heidegger and Husserl.” Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care (2023): 17-26. Link

  5. “Living Accountably: Accountability as a Virtue.” With C. Stephen Evans. International Philosophical Quarterly 62 (1) (245) (2022): 41-64. Link

  6. “Alister McGrath’s Anti-Mind-Body Dualism: Neuroscientific and Philosophical Quandaries for Christian Physicalism.” Trinity Journal 40 (2019): 215-240. 

  7. Awarded the 2018-2019 Harold O. J. Brown Award for Student Scholarship.

  8. “The Primacy of the Mental: From Russellian Monism to Substance Dualism.” Philosophia Christi 20 (1) (2018): 31-41. Link

  9. “Intentionality Contra Physicalism: On the Mind’s Independence from the Body.” With Dallas Willard. Philosophia Christi 20 (2) (2018): 497-515. Link

  10. “The Sanctifying Work of the Holy Spirit: Revisiting Alston’s Interpersonal Model.” With Steve Porter. The Journal of Analytic Theology (6) (2018): 112-130. Link

  11. “Responding to N. T. Wright’s Rejection of the Soul.” Heythrop Journal 59 (2018): 201-220. Link

  12. “The Argument from Reason, and Mental Causal Drainage: A Reply to van Inwagen.” With Todd Buras. Philosophia Christi 19 (2) (2017): 381-399. Link

  13. “Natural Theology, Evidence, and Epistemic Humility.” With Trent Dougherty. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 9 (2) (2017): 1-24. Link

  14. “Who You Could Have Known: Divine Hiddenness, Epistemic Counterfactuals, and the Recalcitrant Nature of Natural Theology.” With Derek McAllister. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 82 (3) (2016): 337–348. Link

  15. “What Does it Mean to Be a Bodily Soul?” With C. Stephen Evans. Philosophia Christi 17 (2) (2015). Link

  16. “Eternal Life as Knowledge of God: An Epistemology of Knowledge by Acquaintance and Spiritual Formation.”Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care 6 (2) (2013): 204-228.​

Publications

Book
Chapters

  1. ​“Where is the Intelligence in an AI? In Eric LaRock and Mihretu Guta (eds.), Consciousness, Unconsciousness and Artificial Intelligence (Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming.

  2. “Virtue Formation and The Sanctifying Work of the Holy Spirit.” With Steven L. Porter. In Faith and Virtue Formation, Adam C. Pelser and W. Scott Cleveland (Eds.), Oxford University Press, 2020.

  3. “Against Emergent Dualism.” In Loose, Menuge, and Moreland (Eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2018. 

  4. “Dismantling Bodily Resurrection Arguments Against Mind-Body Dualism.” In Loftin and Farris (Eds.), Christian Physicalism? Lexington Books, 2018.  

  5. “Neuroscience, Spiritual Formation, and Bodily Souls: A Critique of Christian Physicalism.” With C. Stephen Evans. In Loftin and Farris (Eds.). Christian Physicalism? Lexington Books, 2018.  

  6. “Teleology;” “Gilbert Ryle;” and “Rene Descartes.” In Copan, Reese, Strauss, and Longman III (Eds.). Dictionary of Christianity & Science. Zondervan, 2017.  

Publications

Public Facing

  1. "Becoming AI.” The Journal of Ideas. The Center for Christianity and Public Life (2025). 

Publications

Work in Progress

  1. "Gaze Dualism." Co-author: Alexander Pruss. Under Review.

  2. Manuscript. Designing Minds: AI and the Reality of God.

  3. Manuscript. The Spirit of Our Technology: Christ, Culture, and the Return to Reality 

  4. “Formation of Gethsemane Submission: The Spiritual Virtue of Accountability.”

  5. “AI, the Ontology of Reason, and the Reality of God.”

  6. “Minding the Spirit: The Ontology of Consciousness in the Spiritual Disciplines of Hearing God.” 

Publications

TALKS
Academic
Invited

  1. “Digitally Formed in Christ? AI, Spiritual Formation, and the Rising Intimacy Economy. Tyndale Fellowship Conference, UK (2025).

  2. “The Unity of Consciousness, AI, and the Bodily Soul.” Westmont College (2025).

  3. “Consciousness and Fundamental Fine-Tuning. Biola University (2024).

  4. “Designing Minds: AI and the New Science & Religion Debate.” 5th Annual Swindell Lecture. Biola University(2024).

  5. “Who Are We Now? Subversive Effects for a Science of the Soul of AI.” Faraday Institute. Cambridge University (2024).

  6. “Designing the Mind of Daniel Dennett? AI, Intentionality, and the Reality of God.” Tyndale Fellowship Conference, UK (2024).

  7. “Reprogramming Humanity: The Human Soul and AI's Power to Dehumanize.” Christian Scientific Society, Asbury University (2023).

  8. “Virtually Like Jesus? Spiritual Formation in the Age of AI.” Asbury University (2023).

  9. “Substance Dualism in Conversation with Hylomorphism, and Christian Materialism,” Personhood Conference, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (2023

  10. “Knowing Jesus in a Culture of Disillusionment,” Faith & Society Annual Lecture, Ashland University (2022). Video Link

  11. “The Hard Meta-Problem of Consciousness.” Center for Philosophy of Science at the Sharif University of Technology, Tehran (2022).

  12. “Help Our Unbelief: Knowing Jesus in Doubt,” Palm Beach Atlantic University, Chapel (2022).

  13. “Designing Minds: Cosmic Fine-Tuning,” Biola University, La Mirada, CA (2022).

  14. “Why Having a Mind Is a Weird Thing.” Cuyahoga College, Cleveland, OH (2022).

  15. “Neuro-Sanctification Problems for Christian Physicalism” Society of Christian Philosophers Mountain-Pacific Conference, Las Vegas, NV (2019).  

TALKS
Academic
International Peer-Reviewed

  1. “The Prior Order of Consciousness and Fundamental Fine-Tuning,” Third World Congress on Logic and Religion, Varanasi, India (2022). 

  2. “Emergent Mind or Emergent Brain? A New Problem for Composite Subjectivity,” Dualism in the 21st CenturyWorkshop, Budapest, Hungary (2018).

  3. “An Enduring Problem for Complex Animalism,” Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies Summer Seminar, St. Julian’s, Malta (2018).

  4. “Who You Could Have Known: Divine Hiddenness, Epistemic Counterfactuals, and Natural Theology” British Society for the Philosophy of Religion, Oriel College, Oxford (2015).

  5. “iAnimal? Self-Reference and an Enduring Problem for Animalism” Perspectives on the First-Person Pronoun “I,” Durham University, UK (2014).

  6. “Cognitive Science and the Soul” International Conference on the Soul, Oxford University, UK (2013).

TALKS
ACADEMIC
Domestic Peer-Reviewed 

  1. “AI and the End of Arguments from Reason to God,” Evangelical Philosophical Society Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX (2023).

  2. Book Panel on The Substance of Consciousness,” Evangelical Philosophical Society Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX (2023).

  3. “Consciousness-First Dualism Contra Causal Closure,” Society of Christian Philosophers, Mountain-Pacific Conference, Las Vegas, NV (2019).

  4. Why Does God Seem Hidden?” EPS National Apologetics Conference. San Diego, CA (2019). 

  5. “Neuro-Sanctification Problems for Christian Physicalism” Society of Christian Philosophers Mountain-Pacific Conference, Las Vegas, NV (2019).

  6. “Divine Silence, Cognitive Science, and the Hidden Self,” Evangelical Philosophical Society National Conference, Denver, CO (2018).

  7. “Seeing Darkly: Divine Hiddenness, Cognitive Penetration, and Self Hiding,” Baptist Association of Philosophy Teachers, University of Notre Dame, IN. (2018).

  8. “Seeing Darkly: Divine Hiddenness and Nonbelief as Wishful Seeing,” Evangelical Philosophical Society, Midwest, Wyoming, MI (2018).

  9. “The Openness of Reality: Consciousness-First Objections to Causal Closure,” Evangelical Philosophical Society National Meeting, Providence, RI (2018).

  10. “A Combination Problem for Emergent Dualism and a Neo-Aristotelian Solution,” 2017 Dominican Colloquium in Berkeley: Person, Soul and Consciousness (2017).

  11. “Dismantling Resurrection Objections to Mind-Body Dualism,” Evangelical Philosophical Society National Meeting, Providence, RI. (2017).

  12. “The Primacy of the Mental: An Analytic Phenomenological Defense” Evangelical Philosophical Society, Providence, RI (2017).

  13. “Why Physicalism Still Seems False,” Society of Christian Philosophers, Midwest Meeting, Houston Christian University, Houston, TX. (2017).

  14. “Assessing Resurrection Objections to Mind-Body Dualism,” Evangelical Philosophical Society, Midwest, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL. (2017).

  15. “Epistemology, Mind, and Hard Choices: Externalism or Dualism, but Not Both,” Society of Christian Philosophers, Midwest Meeting, Houston, TX. (2017).

  16. “Cognitive Science, Explanatory Gap Seemings, and the Soul,” Society of Christian Philosophers, Eastern Meeting, Asbury University, Wilmore, KY. (2017).

  17. “Assessing Resurrection Objections to Mind-Body Dualism,” Society of Christian Philosophers, Pacific Meeting, La Mirada, CA. (2017).

  18. “Dismantling Resurrection Objections to the Soul,” BAPT (2016).

  19. “Naturalism and the Mental Problem of Causal Drainage,” Evangelical Philosophical Society National Meeting, San Antonio, TX. (2016).

  20. “Emergence Cannot Save the Soul, But Neo-Aristotelianism Might,” Society of Christian Philosophers, Pacific Meeting, San Diego, CA (2016).

  21. “Emergence Cannot Save the Soul, but Neo-Aristotelianism Might,” Evangelical Philosophical Society, Southwest Meeting, Dallas (2016).

  22. “The Activity of the Holy Spirit in Sanctification.” Conference on the Holy Spirit & Christian Formation, Regent University, VA. (2015).

  23. “Grounding Personal Identity: An Enduring Problem for Animalism,” Society of Christian Philosophers Pacific Meeting, Azusa Pacific (2015).

  24. “An Enduring Problem for Animalism,” Themes from van Inwagen Conference, Niagara University, NY (2014).

  25. “Grounding & Personal Identity,” University of Nevada, Reno Graduate Student Philosophy Conference (2014).

  26. “An Enduring Problem for Animalism,” Berkeley-Stanford Graduate Philosophy Conference (2014).

  27. “Grounding & Personal Identity,” SoCal Philosophy Conference, San Diego State University (2013).

  28. “Conscious Beings: Maximality vs. Mereological Simplicity,” Mind & Language Conference. Texas Tech University, TX (2013).

  29. “Conscious Beings: Maximality vs. Mereological Simplicity,” UT Austin Graduate Philosophy Conference. Austin, TX (2013).

  30. “Cognitive Science & the Self,” Evangelical Philosophical Society, Midwest, Lincoln, IL (2013).

TALKS
Public-Facing

  1. "AI: Promise and Parils.“ Panel Discussion. For the Good of the Public Annual Summit. The Center for Christianity and Public Life. Washington, DC (2025)

  2. "The Spirit of Our Technology: The Deeper AI Problem.” Colson Center National Conference (2025)

  3. “Imitating Minds & Meaning? AI, Consciousness, and Culture.” Calvin College (2025)

  4. A moderated discussion with Phil Goff (University of Durham, UK) Katlin Balog (Rutgers-Newark), and Iskra Fileva (University of Colorado, Boulder)

  5. “Divine Love in the Afflicted Soul: Anxiety, Depression, Spiritual Formation.” Westmont College, 

  6. Chapel (2025).

  7. “When the Soul is Unseen, We Turn to Machines: The Soul of Jesus’s Philosophy of Technology.” Provost’s Lecture. Westmont College (2025).

  8. “Poverty of Spirit in Technological Abundance.” Dwell Bible App. Online (2024).

  9. “Virtually Like Jesus? Spiritual Formation in the Age of AI.” Asbury University (2023).

  10. “To Have Eyes and Not See: Knowing Jesus in a Culture of Disillusionment.” PBA Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference (2023)

  11. “Mechanizing Ourselves to Death: The Soul of Cultural Disillusionment.” Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture, Dallas Willard Center, Westmont College, CA (2023).

  12. “Knowing Jesus in a Culture of Disillusionment.” Faith & Society Lecture, Ashland Uni. (2022).

  13. “Divine Love for the Afflicted: Anxiety, Depression, Spiritual Formation.” Palm Beach Atlantic University, Chapel (2022).

  14. “Disillusionment and the Loss of Self: A Cultural Assessment.” Cultura Retreat. Montana (2021). 

  15. “Why Does God Seem Hidden?” EPS National Apologetics Conference. San Diego, CA (2019). 

  16. “The Depth and Dynamics of the Human Soul: Dallas Willard’s Rejection of Soulless Sanctification” Experiencing Life with God Conference, Westmont College, CA (2018).

  17. “Why Does God Seem Hidden?” EPS National Apologetics Conference. Denver, CO (2018). 

  18. “Interpersonal Pedagogy for Spiritual Formation in the University.” Institute for Faith and Learning Conference. Baylor University. (2016).

  19. “A Reconsideration of Alston’s Interpersonal Model of Sanctification.” BAPT Summer Seminar, University of Notre Dame. (2016).

Talks

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