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Problems with life after death
There are several problems with the concepts of the immortal soul, the resurrected body and replica theory
Problems with the immortal soul
Is a disembodied soul really identifiable as the ‘same person’?
• Dualists argue that a person’s personal identity is distinct from their body — people often talk about their real selves as if they were distinct from their bodies.
• Traditional theology disagrees, and suggests that personal identity is strongly linked to the physical body.
• Aquinas believed that the soul — the anima — animated the body and gave it life. Hence, Aquinas observed:
‘Elements that are by nature destined for union naturally desire to be united with each other; for any being seeks what is suited to it by nature. Since, therefore, the natural condition of the soul is to be united to the body…it has a natural desire for union with the body, hence the will cannot be perfectly at rest until the soul is again joined to a body. When this takes place, man rises from the dead.’
• Furthermore, our physical characteristics give us an identity and the way in which others respond to our physical selves has an effect on our minds. For psychological and physiological reasons, therefore, it may not be reasonable to make a radical separation between physical and non-physical identity.
Problems with the resurrected body
• Is the resurrected person the same person who died? If death is extinction, then the resurrected person must only be a copy of the original person.
• Our experience of bodies is that they are contingent and corruptible. It involves a leap of logic to believe that they can be the vehicle for a post-mortem life.
• What about the appearance of the resurrected body? Does the body look as it did on the point of death? If not, what age is it? And what of physical defects and mental and emotional problems?
• Is everyone cured and made perfect in the afterlife? And if they are made perfect, then is that really them and what constitutes perfection?
• Significantly, Jesus was not immediately recognised by the disciples when he appeared to them. Does this suggest that he looked completely different, or that they were not psychologically prepared to encounter him?
• Jesus’ resurrection was qualitatively different from the resurrection of believers, since it took place within time and space. Can it therefore be a model for the resurrection in the afterlife?
Problems with the replica theory
Hick’s scenario demands that we suspend belief based on regular experience: we do not have experience of people disappearing from one place and reappearing in another in the way he suggests. It may be easier to envisage that bodies are recreated in a post-mortem place than that they can be replicated in a different spatial–temporal location.
Ultimately, we are still left with the problem of whether any kind of post-mortem existence can be verified. John Hick resolves this with the principle of eschatological verification. He envisages two travellers walking down a road, one of whom believes it leads to the celestial city, and one who believes that there is no final destination. Which one of them is right will not be verified until they reach the end of the road, although their particular positions will have a vital influence on the way they experience and interpret what happens to them on the road. Nevertheless, their respective positions will be either verified or falsified, although it is not possible to do so during their earthly existence.
Problems of personal identity
Human beings require three things to make up their individuality: body, memory and psychological pattern (personal identity). If post-mortem existence does not include a body, then bodily continuity is lost. If we cannot remember our previous life or lives, then memory is lost. With only psychological pattern remaining, it would be impossible to determine if the same person has survived the death process without bodily continuity. Without continuity, the benefits of an afterlife would be questionable.
The real issues are: ‘What constitutes personal identity and what makes a person?’