possibility of physical existence after death

• physicalists would say that there is no continuing personal existence after death

  • 2 key thinkers: Russell and Flew
• justification of physicalist view:

  • it makes no sense to think of someone surviving death - a persons identity is linked inextricably to the physical body; when our physical life ends, all mental activity also does
• Russell holds the physicalist view regarding physical existence after death

  • concepts about surviving death result from the instinctive fear of death
  • the continual change in each means that there can be no distinctive identity - we are simply a collection of experiences that arises out of memory + habit
• Flew holds the physicalist view regarding physical existence after death

  • the concept of life after death is linguistically incoherent - talk of life after death is effectively talking about 'dead survivors', which is self-contradictory
• evaluation of the physicalist rejection of life after death:

  • existence of life after death if incapable of empirical proof
  • HOWEVER, this works both ways - it cannot be proved there is no life after death
  • near death experiences + reincarnation may support the possibility
  • many Christians belief Jesus' resurrection was an actual event
• Hick was a soft materialist - for him humans are a psycho-physical unity

  • when the body dies, so does the soul
• Hick was different from other materialists - he believed in life after death, causing him to make his thought experiment involving Mr X
• Mr X thought experiment (replica theory)

  1. Mr X is transported in the blink of an eye from one part of the world to another
  2. Mr X appears dead in one part of the world, and a 'replica' of him appears in another
  3. Mr X is dead on earth + a replica comes into existence as a resurrected person in another sphere

  Hick did not believe that life after death would be like (3), he was simply trying to stimulate debate by showing life after death to be a logical possibility
• evaluation of Hick's replica theory

  • if Hick was right in his belief that God is omnipotent, then bodily resurrection must be logically possible
  • HOWEVER, there are many unanswered questions about the details of the scenarios e.g. if God could create a number of replicas, each with a different consciousness
• Christian beliefs about resurrection

  • Paul's teachings suggest Jesus' resurrection was bodily; this is also presented in the Nicene Creed

  however, Jesus' own teachings about resurrection suggest he had a more spiritual concept of the afterlife
• evaluation of Christian beliefs about resurrection:

  • literalist understanding is contrary to scientific fact - dead bodies do not come back to life
  • liberal understanding of resurrection as a metaphysical claim renders scientific investigation inappropriate