At creation, God breathes "the breath of life" into humanity, giving them life. Before this breath, enters Adam in Genesis 3, Adam is just "dust from the ground" that God used to form him. It is this breath that animates him, and this breath as seen as the soul being implemented in humans
View of Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas adapted Aristotle's theory, he understands that the soul gives the body of life but believes in the Christian view of the afterlife
Hick's Thought Experiment
Hick believed in the soul. However, he proposed a thought experiment to show how materialists could still believe in God and life after death. He argued that if God was all-powerful, he could create a "replica" of a person at death in a new place. As the replica would be identical to the original copy, this means that personal identity and life would continue.
Criticisms of Hick's Thought Experiment
This is a problematic theory - Is a replica really the same? Would we value the replica the same? What happens to people who have a terminal disability or people who die in a horrible accident, would they have the same problems?
Hicks response to J. Smith
Should Mr Smith be walking down the street in New York one moment, and in the very next moment find himself in Delhi, but with the same personality as the person who was in New York , Mr Smith would conclude he was the same person who had simply moved places in a very 'astonishing' way.
Swinburne's analogy
Compares the body to a socket and the soul to a light bulb. The socket may get broken, but the bulb will stay dormant until it is fixed. This means the body can be damaged but the soul with exist beyond it
