Hick on resurrection ~ slide 1 John Hick on resurrection zThesis: Resurrection & what modern science tells us about human nature are compatible (cf. Linda Badham - modern science and all theories of ongoing life are incompatible) uModern science yTells us that humans are a “psycho- physical unity” (452) yThere is no distinction between soul & body

Hick on resurrection ~ slide 2 John Hick on resurrection yHick: Now the notion of resurrection is “consonant with” the conception of the human person as an “indissoluble psycho-physical unity, and yet it also offers the possibility of an empirical meaning for the idea of life after death” (453).

Hick on resurrection ~ slide 3 John Hick on resurrection uThe notion of resurrection yPaul (in I Cor. 15:36-44) offers the classic statement äAt death the whole person dies äBut God, by an act of sovereign power, recreates the person, not as an identical physical organism, but as a soma pneumatikon (“spiritual body”)

Hick on resurrection ~ slide 4 John Hick on resurrection äHick: This “spiritual body” embodies the dispositional characteristics & memory traces of the deceased organism & äInhabits an environment continuous with this “spiritual body”

Hick on resurrection ~ slide 5 John Hick on resurrection yThe problem of identity: Can this “spiritual body” be the same person as the deceased person? (Recall that one of Badham’s criticisms of the idea of resurrection is that persons cannot retain identity without continuity.)

Hick on resurrection ~ slide 6 John Hick on resurrection äHick’s defense of the intelligibility of identity of the person without continuity: three imaginary case histories å1. Person in London disappears & suddenly reappears in New York--same personality, continuity of memory, same beliefs, same habits. Only thing possible is continuity occupancy of space.

Hick on resurrection ~ slide 7 John Hick on resurrection åThis is intelligible, makes sense. å2. Person dies suddenly in London, reappears in New York with same character, memories, etc. We would be forced to say that this is the same person.

Hick on resurrection ~ slide 8 John Hick on resurrection å3. Person dies and person with same character traits, memories, etc. appears in a resurrected world. Should we say this is the same person? Hick: Yes (458).

Hick on resurrection ~ slide 9 John Hick on resurrection uHick states that what he has tried to show is the “conceivability of resurrection as the divine re-creation of the individual after his earthly death as a total psycho-physical ‘replica’ in another space” (461). uThus note that he is not offering an argument for the existence of resurrection, but for its intelligibility.