Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T06:01:59.518Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The revision theory of resurrection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2008

ERIC STEINHART
ERIC STEINHART
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ 07470
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A powerful argument against the resurrection of the body is based on the premise that all resurrection theories violate natural laws. We counter this argument by developing a fully naturalistic resurrection theory. We refer to it as the revision theory of resurrection (RTR). Since Hick's replica theory is already highly naturalistic, we use Hick's theory as the basis for the RTR. According to Hick, resurrection is the recreation of an earthly body in another universe. The recreation is a resurrection counterpart. We show that the New Testament supports the idea of resurrection counterparts. The RTR asserts that you are a node in a branching tree of increasingly perfect resurrection counterparts. These ever better counterparts live in increasingly perfect resurrection universes. We give both theological arguments and an empirical argument for the RTR.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 63 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baltimore, J. (2006) ‘Got to have soul’, Religious Studies, 42, 417–430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrow, J. & Tipler, F. (1986) The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (New York NY: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Bynum, C. (1995) The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York NY: Columbia University Press).Google Scholar
Corcoran, K. (2001) ‘Physical persons and postmortem survival without temporal gaps’, in idem (ed.) Soul, Body, and Survival (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press), 201–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corcoran, K. (2006) ‘I'm no soul, man: a response to Baltimore’, Religious Studies, 42, 431–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coughlan, M. (1987) ‘Must God create only the best possible world?’, Sophia, 26, 15–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dilley, F. (1983) ‘Resurrection and the “Replica objection”’, Religious Studies, 19, 459–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fales, E. (1994) ‘Divine freedom and the choice of a world’, International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, 35, 65–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flew, A. (1976) The Presumption of Atheism (New York NY: Harper & Row).Google Scholar
Forrest, P. (1981) ‘The problem of evil: two neglected defences’, Sophia, 20, 49–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forrest, P. (1995) God without the Supernatural: A Defence of Scientific Theism (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
French, P. (1982) ‘The survival of my counterpart’, Southern Journal of Philosophy, 20, 53–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guth, A. H. & Steinhardt, P. J. (1984) ‘The inflationary universe’, Scientific American, 261, 116–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasker, W. (1999) The Emergent Self (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Hershenov, D. (2002) ‘Van Inwagen, Zimmerman, and the materialist conception of resurrection’, Religious Studies, 38, 451–469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hershenov, D. (2003) ‘The metaphysical problem of intermittent existence and the possibility of resurrection’, Faith & Philosophy, 20, 24–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hick, J. (1976) Death and Eternal Life (New York NY: Harper & Row).Google Scholar
Hudson, H. (2001) A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirk, G. S. & Raven, J. E. (1957) The Presocratic Philosophers (New York NY: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kripke, S. (1980) Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (1697) ‘On the ultimate origination of the universe’, in Schrecher, P. & Schrecker, A. (trans.) Leibniz: Monadology and Other Essays (New York NY: Macmillan Publishing, 1988), 84–94.Google Scholar
Leslie, J. (1989) Universes (New York NY: Routledge).Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1968) ‘Counterpart theory and quantified modal logic’, Journal of Philosophy, 65, 113–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. (1986) On the Plurality of Worlds (Cambridge MA: Blackwell).Google Scholar
Linde, A. D. (1986) ‘Eternally existing self-reproducing chaotic inflationary universe’, Physics Letters B, 175, 387–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linde, A. D. (1994) ‘The self-reproducing inflationary universe’, Scientific American, 271, 48–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackay, D. (1997) ‘Computer software and life after death’, in Edwards, P. (ed.) Immortality (Amherst NY: Prometheus Books), 248–249.Google Scholar
Miller, R. (1992) ‘Concern for counterparts’, Philosophical Papers, 21, 133–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moravec, H. (1988) Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Moravec, H. (2000) Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind (New York NY: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F. (1978) Thus Spake Zarathustra (New York NY: Penguin Books).Google Scholar
Parfit, D. (1971) ‘On “The importance of self-identity”’, Journal of Philosophy, 68, 683–690.Google Scholar
Peirce, C. S. (1965) Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Polkinghorne, J. C. (1985) ‘The scientific worldview and a destiny beyond death’ in MacGregor, G. (ed.) Immortality and Human Destiny: A Variety of Views (New York NY: Paragon House), 180–183.Google Scholar
Reichenbach, B. (1978) ‘Monism and the possibility of life after death’, Religious Studies, 14, 27–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reichenbach, B. (1979) ‘Must God create the best possible world?’, International Philosophical Quarterly, 19, 203–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rescher, N. (1991) G. W. Leibniz's Monadology: An Edition for Students (Pittsburgh PA: University of Pittsburgh Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shorter, J. (1962) ‘More about bodily continuity and personal identity’, Analysis, 22, 79–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sider, T. (1996) ‘All the world's a stage’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74, 433–453.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sider, T. (2001) Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time (New York NY: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smolin, L. (1992) ‘Did the universe evolve?’, Classical and Quantum Gravity, 9, 173–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smolin, L. (1997) The Life of the Cosmos (New York NY: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Sutherland, S. (1964) ‘Immortality and resurrection’, Religious Studies, 3, 377–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Inwagen, P. (1978) ‘The possibility of resurrection’, in Edwards, P. (ed.) Immortality (Amherst NY: Prometheus Books, 1997), 242–246.Google Scholar
Wolfson, H. (1956) ‘Immortality and resurrection in the philosophy of the church fathers’, in Stendahl, K. (ed.) Immortality and Resurrection (New York NY: Macmillan, 1965), 54–96.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, D. (1999) ‘The compatibility of materialism and survival: the “falling elevator” model’, Faith and Philosophy, 16, 194–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar