Religious Views on Life after Death Philosophy of Religion Perspective

Definition of Death “the complete and permanent cessation of all vital functions of a living creature, the end of all life.” Many philosophers agree on first part, the end of a form of life, but not necessarily the latter, the end of all life, this is due to; genes; life’s works; memories; resurrection of the body; reincarnation; immortality of the soul.

Definition of Soul Different views on life after death often stem from views on the soul. Soul - “The immaterial “I” that possesses conscious experience, controls passion, desire and action and maintains a perfect identity from birth (or before birth) to death (and after).”

Dualism Dualists fundamentally believe that bodies (an outer shell for the real self), and minds, (which determines a persons personality) exist, distinct, but linked. Dualists therefore believe the soul is immortal, (if you contemplate the higher realities in life – truth goodness and justice), it continues after death, even though the body may decay.

Plato Plato believed the soul was higher than the body, as it is an immortal substance. This is because the soul can grasp the realm of ideas, which is something more than a material realm. The ideas belong to the spiritual realm of reality, which is called the forms, (which contains the perfect idea of everything). The soul steers the body in the direction of the forms and tries to stop it from being in the material world of senses. Knowledge is what the soul remembers from before it was put into the mortal body, thus the “remembers” idea makes the immortal soul different from the body.

Plato - 2 The soul wants to break into the realm, of ideas, with the true, the beautiful and the good. For Plato, the soul was the “I”, the essence of the person, and for Plato, this is what continues after death. His views can be likened to the material body being like a tent, which the soul rests in for this life, then the soul, due to its nature, moves back into the world of the forms after it has had a short duration (a life) in this world.

Materialism Materialists fundamentally believe that our minds are inseparable from our bodies, there is not a separate soul. Materialists think science will be able to explain everything, for example that human emotion is just psycho-chemical reactions in your brain, you will never be able to scientifically prove that there is a soul. There is no scientific evidence for the soul, the body is just matter. Life depends on a functioning brain, body and nervous system, as death involves the ending of this, a physical life cannot be supported, therefore the body dies.

Materialism - 2 Hard Materialism – Characteristics of a person are only physical, consciousness is only brain activity, when the body dies, so does the brain. Soft Materialism – Some materialists take a less hard-line, for example, soft materialists believe that consciousness is more than a physical process. However, the mind and body are still related and cannot exist separately.

Re-creation theory The whole body could continue after death however, as there does not need to be a living soul to be the thing that continues after death, the mind and matter could continue after death together, resurrection could occur. However, the body must still be recognisable as the original person, “the I” of the individual would have to survive the death and would have to be similar to how they were before, so that both the body and matter was seen to be continuing. Some philosophers have problems with this as they do not think that the same “I” will be reappearing.

Richard Dawkins Dawkins, as a strong atheist, is also a materialist. DNA is all a person is, according to him, a soul cannot exist, it is a mythical concept invented by primitive people. “Life is just bytes and bytes of information” – River out of Eden. However, he still believes humans are great, not because they are created by God, but because of the evolutionary process they are able to undertake. Dawkins believes that humans are the universe, as they are so great and they are what keeps going in the evolutionary time space. Dawkins, therefore, does not believe in life after death. He thinks humans are just put on this Earth to be survival machines and reproduce, the ultimate reason for their existence, and then die. This is what life is and it’s purpose has been fulfilled.

Idealism Minds are the only reality, the physical world we perceive to be matter is just ideas and therefore can be spiritual, our bodies are unreal, as matter is only really spirit.

George Hegel Hegel believed that the things we experience had been altered by our minds, however, we cannot know where the sensations come from. Hegel also believed that there was an Absolute Spirit (a rational soul of the universe), this means that are minds are not ultimately real, as they stem from the spirit. The spirit gains a better thought process through the history that it experiences.

Other Views (Somewhere in between the Materialist and Dualist spectrum)

Aristotle The soul gives the body life according to Aristotle. Different types of humans and animals have different souls, this is part of what defines a person. For Aristotle, the soul, develops a persons skills, character and temper. The soul is inseparable from the body, therefore, cannot survive death. However, Aristotle is a dualist, not a materialist. What develops Aristotle’s dualist views, is that humans have a different soul to animals, as they have different things (rationality). With Aristotle, the psyche (mind), sensations and emotional side of us are the body and the soul is the thinking self, the mental activity side of things. Aristotle, along with many other Greeks, thought that this was the part of the soul which survived death.

Aquinas “Anima” is the term given to the soul by Aquinas, as it animates the body. It provides the growth, sensation, movement and understanding mind. The soul is able to survive death as it is not divisible, it is one entity. (Aquinas believed that only divisible things can decay). However, as the soul was in a human body, the soul becomes individual and accustomed to it, therefore, the departing soul at death retains the individual identity of the body. This shows that Aquinas thought that when the soul leaves the body at death, it continues on after, however, it still retains some identity of the body, making the views dualist.

John Hick Hick believes that the body and soul are one, inseparable. Therefore he does not think that the soul can exist separate to the body after death. However, he still believes in Life after Death. This is in the form of resurrection. Hicks description of resurrection would therefore be There being a replica or duplicate of the person made by God in heaven, after the persons life on Earth has ended. It is the same person, as they have the same memory and emotion etc. Hick’s replica Theory is used to explain these ideas.

John Hick – Replica Theory Hick uses the example of John Smith, who disappears in America and arrives in India. The replica is the same, with the same memory and emotion. His friends also conclude he is the same person. However, Hick then says that John Smith died and was recreated in a different place at exactly the same time. His friends again conclude that it is the same person, as his characteristics are exactly the same. There is a specific resurrection world Hick is referring to here, rather than him reappearing somewhere within our world which we can experience. The world is “not situated at any distance or any direction from the objects in our present world, although each object in either world is spatially related to every other object in the same world” – Philosophy of Religion. Hick thought this, and therefore resurrection was logically possible, as God is omnipotent and so could make this recreation happen.

Biblical view - St Paul This view is compatible with Hick’s view, which incorporates resurrection. “When buried it is a physical body; when raised it will be a spiritual body. There is of course a physical body, so there has to be a spiritual body.” – 1 Corinthians 15:35-44. Life after death will be as a spiritual body. This is because, unlike its earthly form as the seed, is from the plant into which it grows. They keep their personal identity, but can achieve eternal life in a bodily form.

Gilbert Ryle “The Concept of the Mind” (1949) Ryle thought the philosophical of the use of the word soul was a “category mistake” or a mistake in the use of the language. The example which he used was a foreigner watching a cricket match “Where’s the team’s spirit” may have been interpreted as “the team’s spirit” being a physical entity. A soul was considered to have been a category mistake too, soul’s actual meaning was thought to refer to the way someone behaves.