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Monism and the possibility of Life after death

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Bruce R. Reichenbach
Bruce R. Reichenbach
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Augsburg College, Minneapolis
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Extract

Traditionally, when man was viewed as a psycho-physical unity, life after death was deemed quite impossible, particularly in the face of universal human mortality and inevitable bodily corruption. However, some modern anthropologically monistic philosophers, including most notably John Hick, have argued that life after death is possible.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 27 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

page 27 note 1 Hick, John, ‘Theology and Verification’, Theology Today, XVII, no. 1 (April 1960), pp. 12–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 28 note 1 Williams, B. A. O., ‘Personal Identity and Individuation’, Proceedings of the Aristotelean Society, LVII (1956–1957), p. 242.Google Scholar

page 28 note 2 Martin, C. B., Religious Belief (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1959), p. 107.Google Scholar

page 28 note 3 Penelhum, Terence in ‘Personal Identity, Memory, and Survival’, The Journal of Philosophy, LVI, no. 22 (October, 1959), p. 901, suggests (though he apparently does not adopt) the possibility of broadening our concept of a person and of a human by so that it includes gap-inclusiveness.Google Scholar

page 29 note 1 Failure to recognize the potency of this objection, which denies not only the actuality but also the possibility of magical acts, is one of the weaknesses frequently present in establishing counter-cases. See Martin, C. B., op. cit. pp. 96 f.Google Scholar; Penelhum, Terence, Survival and Disembodied Existence (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), ch. 7.Google Scholar

page 31 note 1 Williams, (op. cit. p. 229)Google Scholar distinguishes between two positions which deny that bodily continuity is a necessary condition for personal identity. The strong thesis ‘asserts that there is no conceivable situation in which bodily identity would be necessary’, whereas the weaker thesis asserts that ‘at least one case can be consistently constructed in which bodily identity fails’. Our argument here supports the weaker thesis. That is, we have not shown that there are no cases in which bodily continuity is required for personal identity. More will be said on this shortly.

page 32 note 1 Penelhum, , Survival and Disembodied Existence, p. 56.Google Scholar

page 32 note 2 That it is dependent upon present bodily existence is more disputable. That I now have a true memory claim is not dependent upon someone else being able to check whether I use ‘remember’ properly or consistently, unless one contends that I cannot know for myself when I am correctly using such. This latter contention involves the whole convoluted problem of private language. Fortunately, we can avoid this issue by granting the above claim, since we are not arguing for disembodied, but rather embodied, future existence.

page 32 note 3 Williams, , op. cit. p. 242.Google Scholar

page 33 note 1 Ibid. p. 238.

page 33 note 2 Ibid. p. 239.

page 33 note 3 Martin, , op. cit. p. 207.Google Scholar