Reading around this topic

LIFE AFTER

DEATH

Reading around this topic

You should aim to study at least two of the

following introductory texts. This is not an

exhaustive list, but these are easily available

works and cover the general discussion well.

Peter Cole, Philosophy of Religion, ch. 10

Brian Davies, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, ch.11

John Hick, Philosophy of Religion, chs. 9 & 10

Ann Jordan et al, Philosophy of Religion for A-level, ch. 13 Michael Peterson et al, Reason & Religious Belief, ch. 10 Mel Thompson, Teach Yourself Philosophy of Religion, ch.5 Peter Vardy, The Puzzle of God, ch. 18

BASIC QUESTIONS

Jordan, Lockyer and Tate in their

Philosophy of

Religion for A-level

structure their discussion by

posing the following questions:

!

Do we have souls?

!

How can we survive death?

!

Do we have more than one life?

!

Is there evidence to support life after death?

Do we have more than one

life?

Is there any evidence to

support life after death?

Is it life after death?

On defining your terms…

!

Is ‘recollecting’ incidents from my

previous life or lives really what I think it

is? If not, then this is not life after a

previous death at all.

!

Is the notion that I live on in the genes of

my descendents in any sense ‘life after

death’?

!

If I die, am kept cryogenically, and

subsequently revived, is this life after

death?

A priori arguments are also

relevant in these debates

!

Thomas

Aquinas

’ argument that

we are made

for an ultimate end, happiness,

which God will

vouchsafe for us in a future life.

!

Kant’s moral argument

, in which life after

death is a necessary postulate of practical reason.

!

Plato

’s argument that

the soul is immortal

because it is imperishable. Because the soul is

simple, it is therefore indestructible.

• 

Analyse the question in front of you.

• 

Use your material to answer the

question in a planned and clearly

structured way.

• 

Show you understand the range of

issues relevant to the question.

• 

Outline the various options and their

proponents.

• 

Give the best arguments for and

against each option.

A clear outline of the topic #1

Do people live after

death? This is surely

one of the most

important questions

that is asked in the

philosophy of

religion. Naturally

there are only two

possible answers to it.

Either human persons

will live after death or

they will not.

Let us call all theories

that deny life after

death, ‘Death Ends

All’ views. There are

three main sorts of

theory that affirm life

after death:

reincarnation,

immortality of the

soul, and the

resurrection of the

body.

In his introduction to life after death, the philosopher Stephen T. Davis wrote this introduction:

A clear outline of the topic #2

Here, we will first

consider the claim that

life after death is not just

false but incoherent.

Next, we will consider

two philosophical

problems that bear on the

issue, viz. the relationship

between mind and body,

and the problem of

personal identity.

Then we will discuss

one important ‘death

ends all’ theory.

Finally, we will

discuss reincarnation,

immortality and

resurrection

respectively.

Some significant contributors to

the debate on life after death

Flew

In article in 1956, “Can a

Man Witness His Own

Funeral?”, Flew argued that

the notion of life after death

is

incoherent

.

[1] Statement of surviving

death is self-contradictory.

[2] LAD is empirically false.

[3] ‘People are what you

meet’ – bodies plus

behaviour.

Descartes

!

Dualistic

theory that a

human being = material

body (temporary machine)

+ non-physical mind or

soul (permanent essence).

!

Interactionism

– mind and

body intimately conjoined,

but metaphysically cannot

be causally interrelated.

Pineal gland is site of

interaction via ‘animal

spirits’.

Locke

!  Story of the soul of a

prince entering the body of a cobbler. Test case for personal identity. (cf. Bart ‘the fly’ Simpson).

!  Three criteria for PI?

!  [1] Memory criterion.

!  [2] Bodily criterion.

!  [3] ‘Closest continuer’ or

‘Psychological continuity’ criterion.

Russell

Famous 20

cc ‘Death

Ends All’ atheist and

materialist thinker. Wrote,

“When I die, I rot”. Others

include A.J.Ayer & Kai

Nielsen. Atheistic

Existentialists and ancient

Stoics hold this view too.

The most notable Stoic

was Epicurus (341 –270

BC), who founded

Epicurus

!  The empiricist epistemology

of Epicureanism, allied to a hedonistic ethics advocating pleasure as the one good, led Epicurus to say that being

dead will be no worse than not having being born.

!  Central to his view is that

because we do not experience being dead, we should not be afraid of it and death should therefore be of no concern to us.

“Death, the most dreaded of evils, is …of no concern to us, for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present, we no longer exist.”

Buddha?

!  Representative of those who believe

in reincarnation? Probably a misunderstanding. The other sophisticated version is that of Vedantic Hinduism.

!  Reincarnation is the view that the

immaterial essense (or soul or jiva) of a person can successfully animate two or more bodies (sequentially not contemporaneously). But Buddhism has no self after death – so not

reincarnation? Rebirth is preferred – but rebirth of what, if there is no

post mortem soul?

!  Best modern supportive evidence in

the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson, eg. “Twenty Cases Suggestive of

Standard objections to reincarnation theory

1.  Equivocal nature of the evidence.

Alternative explanations of the evidence such as ‘yoga memory’, other than

reincarnation, can be found such as telepathy, fraud, lack of verifiability.

2.  Philosophical difficulties in the

relationship between me and my karmic

heir. What links them together, if anything?

Is ‘same jiva’ enough for numerical identity / continuity?

3.  If karma is true, there is no such thing as

undeserved suffering. How does the

Plato

!  Classical advocate of the

immortality of the soul. Post death, the soul has one eternal and uninterrupted life in a

spiritual world.

!  Not widely supported today, the

heyday of this view was the

Victorian era with its interest in spiritualistic phenomena –

seances, trance mediumship, automatic writing etc.

!  Nowadays the area is dominated

by discussions of OOBE’s and NDE’s. But are these post-death?

Kant

!  Kant’s ‘moral argument’ for

the God had the immortality of the soul as one of its

necessary postulates.

!  H.H. Price’s 1953 article,

“Survival and the Idea of

Another World” showed that the idea of souls inhabiting an immaterial world beyond

death was at least

philosophically intelligible and coherent. He was

agnostic about its reality.

!  The most serious objection is

the ‘mind-body unity’

argument. ie. mind requires a functioning brain.

Resurrection of Jesus

!  The paradigm case of an

historical claim that there is embodied life beyond death.

!  Bodily resurrection is believed

by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Within the Christian tradition there are numerous

readings of the view: temporary disembodiment; same

reassembled and reconfigured matter resurrection; new

material resurrection; replication theory.

Hick

!  Famous discussion in his “Death and

Eternal Life”.

!  Posited the ‘Replica theory’. To solve

the personal continuity problem, God recreates a person who has died (just one). This is the ‘same’ person, but in a different space-time. Others would

recognise him or her, and he or she would say, I am the ‘same’ person.

!  Persons are indissoluble

psycho-physical unities, and the analogy of

software running in new hardware may be illuminating here.

A short test

!

In each case you

simple answer the

question that is, or

is not, associated

with the figure on

the slide in the

context of the issue

of life after death

Buddha

The Buddha was an

advocate of which of

the following views?

[a] Resurrection

[b] Reincarnation

[c] Rot & Recycle

[d] Spookification

[e] Rebirth

Epicurus

Epicurus believed that

we should fear death

because it was the end

of the existence of the

self.

Hick

Hick advocated which

of the following:

[1] Reincarnation

[2] Immortality of the

soul.

[3] ‘Replication’ of

the person after

death

Flew

Flew’s religious

outlook was that of

[a] Hinduism

[b] Judaism

[c] Jainism

[d] Christianity

[e] Atheism

Descartes

Descartes advocated

which of the

following

metaphysical

positions:

[1] Dualism

[2] Monism

[3] Illusionism

Locke

Lock offered a fantastical tale in order to explore the issue of personal identity involving

[a] A man and his dog

[b] A prince and a cobbler [c] An angel and a demon [d] A leper and a pharisee [e] Bart Simpson and a

Russell

This philosopher was

convinced that the

ultimate constituent of

man was

[a] Spirit

[b] Matter

[c] Number

[d] Aether

Plato

Plato believed that the

soul or psyche of

human beings was

[a] eternal

[b] indestructible

[c] spiritual

Kant

Kant’s favourite

argument for the

existence of God

which referred to the

immortality of the

soul was

[a] Ontological

[b] Teleological

[c] Moral

[d] Cosmological

Resurrection of Jesus

Christians believe that

they will be

resurrected like Jesus

and thus have a

heavenly body which

will be the context of

their post mortem

existence.

LIFE AFTER

DEATH

The End

Or Only Just The

Beginning?