What Is a "Human" in The Walking Dead? [season 1 spoilers only]

Rick Grimes rides into Atlanta, now a zombie wasteland.

I'm addicted to The Walking Dead. 

The Walking Dead is AMC's unconventional but hit drama that depicts the lives of a small band of people in Georgia who have (so far) survived a global zombie apocalypse. The vast majority of the global population has not. [1] In this post-apocalyptic world, zombies (mindless, flesh-craving corpses) roam the cities, open roads, and country-side looking for a fresh human meal. The drama that ensues (among the living) is fascinating, compelling, and addicting.

Because a fair number of Christians (in my circles anyway) are watching The Walking Dead, it is a topic worthy of Christian reflection. There are a number of aspects of the show that deserve Christian analysis. This analysis is limited to the worldview of the Walking Dead universe and how it answers the question, what is a human being?

[Spoiler alert: There are spoilers from season 1 only.]

What is a human being?

a "walker" from Season 1, episode 2

Any worldview must address a handful of questions, and arguably the most hotly debated one is "What is a human being?" [2] The one thing that is clear from the very first episode is that the zombies (called "walkers") are not "human." The viewer doesn't get the impression that there is any moral dilemma for the living when they kill the walkers--a task accomplished solely by shooting, smashing, or stabbing the zombie's head, thereby destroying the brain. The distinction between the living and the zombies is made clear when Rick, the unofficial group leader, refuses to allow the group to kill a member who is known to be "infected" but has not yet "died" and become a zombie. Rick says, "We don't kill the living." Once zombies, however, Rick leads the pack in hunting them down. (see the infographic below)

an amusing infographic on Season 1 zombie kill ratios

In the Walking Dead universe, what does it mean to be "living," or to be "human"? It is nearly unanimous among the characters that the zombies are not human. Why not? As a Christian, I kept listening for some clue words, such as "conscience" or "soul," which might indicate some sort of theistic dualism. The person dies, the soul leaves the body, and then the body, by some mysterious mechanism, rises from the dead without a soul. This is dualistic, because it assumes that the human is both body and soul. When just a body, the human would essentially become a soul-less animal, bent on the pure instinctual drive to eat living flesh--human and otherwise.

To my dismay, this is not the direction that the producers took. In the final episode of season 1, the viewer is given an entirely naturalistic explanation by Dr. Edwin Jenner of the Atlanta Center for Disease Control (CDC). Essentially, the individual and the entire brain dies. Then, within a short period of time, the brain begins to reboot due to some kind of still-unknown virus, bacteria, or parasite. Jenner calls this the "second event." But, Dr. Jenner explains, only the brain stem reactivates, leaving the rest of the brain, "the part that makes you 'human'," dead. Jenner's explanation for what makes us human (emotions, desires, experiences, morality, memories, personality, love, etc...) all lie within the function of the physical brain.

While zombies can be a useful, if fictional, metaphor for what a human would be like without a soul, the writers have gone naturalistic. Season 2 will depict a bit more religious dialogue, but the essence of human-ness remains uncontestedly naturalistic. While it really doesn't take away from the story, such a naturalistic assumption does present some serious philosophical problems.

Problems with naturalism:

First, in a purely naturalistic worldview, there can be no free will, a consequence that is not even hinted at in the show. [3] The reason there can be no free will is that human actions would be determined entirely by the brain's electro-chemical state. It leads to hard determinism.

Secondly, it is impossible for objective morality to exist if morality is merely the chemical functioning of the brain to make us nice, whatever that would mean. What makes the show a drama is the constant moral conflict, particularly between alpha males Rick and Shane. What is the right thing to do given our present, incredible circumstance? If brain chemistry is all there is, moral dilemmas are merely an illusion.

Thirdly, if the physical brain is all there is, then Dale's and others' insistence upon Andrea that suicide would be a "cop-out" is baseless. Why does it matter? If to be human is mere brain function, then life is without any meaning or purpose. The show's insistence to hang on to hope (a message with which I absolutely agree) is in contradiction to its own philosophical moral foundation, or lack thereof. In a purely naturalistic worldview, there can be no objective moral law. There can only be a Darwinian drive for survival.

Though I'm compelled by the human drama of the story, there is not sufficient reason given in the show to believe in human-ness. When it comes to the question of what makes a human, the worldview of The Walking Dead is inconsistent and even contradictory. In the end, there really is no difference between the zombies and the living, except the amount of brain function. [4]

The biblical view of humanity.

The Christian worldview sees a human as a dualistic being, comprised of both body and soul. Humans are a spiritual-physical unit, the elements of which are only meant to be separated temporarily at death. (2 Cor. 5:8) When humans die, their souls are separated from their bodies, but they are eventually reunited in the great resurrection. (1 Cor. 15:42-44) This hope of perfect resurrection is central and necessary to Christian eschatology. Without such a doctrine as a fully, restorative resurrection, the Christian religion would be reduced to a pitiable social activity. (1 Cor. 15:16-19) This soul, which is immaterial like God himself, is what guarantees full human-ness, and it is what makes the human being transcend to a higher, objective moral reality. Humans can know a moral code, not only because it is wired into our brains, but because it was written by the One who wired them. (Romans 2:14-15)

Perhaps the zombie is a metaphor for what a human would be if it was stripped of its soul. Without a soul, arguably, humans lose their conscience. This is precisely what a zombie is. It is a soul-less and conscience-less being. It is completely void of personhood, morality, and self-awareness, essentially reduced to the status of a rabid animal.

It is the soul that separates us from rabid dogs and zombies. Is that what atheistic naturalists would have us believe? Can we really be nothing more than living bodies? [5]

(Keep watch for the forthcoming post on Nietzschean ethics in The Walking Dead.)

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[1] In motion picture, zombies have historically been the subject of outright comedies (Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead) and campy horror flicks (such as The Evil Dead trilogy). The zombie genre is not generally treated with the seriousness that it is in The Walking Dead.
[2] According to James Sire's excellent work The Universe Next Door, there are 7 essential questions that must be answered in order for a belief system to constitute a fully-formed worldview. What is a human being? is one of them.The reason that I suspect this is the most hotly debated one is that it is central to debates regarding abortion and euthanasia.
[3]  I, of course, don't fault the writers for this omission, because a long philosophical aside on the merits and limitations of naturalism simply wouldn't make a very good show.
[4] If a higher level of brain function is what makes us human, then the unborn, the underdeveloped, and those with severe cognitive disabilities are subhuman. This type of naturalistic thinking will inevitably lead to a society as ready to kill them as Rick is willing to kill a zombie.
[5] This should not be taken as an argument against atheism. It is merely a question that atheists have failed to adequately answer.