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9 - Mind, body, and immortality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Michael J. Murray  and
Michael C. Rea
Michael J. Murray
Affiliation:
Franklin and Marshall College, Pennsylvania
Michael C. Rea
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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Summary

Dust you are, and to dust you shall return. So Christians worldwide are reminded every year during the Ash Wednesday liturgy. But according to Christian doctrine, the return to dust is not the end of all things. In the words of the Nicene Creed, “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” The Islamic tradition expresses a similar expectation:

I swear by the Day of Resurrection, and by the self-reproaching soul. Does man think We shall never put his bones together again? Indeed, We can remould his very fingers! Yet man would ever deny what is to come. “When will this be,” he asks, “this day of Resurrection?” But when the sight of mortals is confounded and the moon eclipsed; when sun and moon are brought together – on that day man will ask “Whither shall I flee?” No, there shall be no escape. For on that day all shall return to your Lord.

Likewise, the Hebrew Bible predicts a future resurrection, and the thirteenth-century Jewish philosopher-theologian Maimonides lists belief in bodily resurrection as one of the thirteen central principles of the Jewish faith.

Belief in some sort of afterlife is characteristic of most world religions. But is life after death really possible? Many philosophers think that it is not. If they are right, then the core doctrines of a great many world religions will have to be either substantially modified or rejected.

Type
Chapter
Information
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion , pp. 258 - 286
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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References

Bynum, Caroline Walker, The Resurrection of the Body (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Churchland, Paul, Matter and Consciousness, revised edition (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988).Google Scholar
Cooper, John, Body, Soul and Life Everlasting (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989).Google Scholar
Corcoran, Kevin (ed.), Soul, Body, and Survival (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Edwards, Paul, (ed.), Immortality (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1992).Google Scholar
Merricks, Trenton, “The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting,” in Murray, Michael (ed.), Reason for the Hope Within (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999).Google Scholar
Perry, John, Dialogues on Personal Identity and Immortality (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1978).Google Scholar
Shoemaker, Sydney and Swinburne, Richard, Personal Identity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984).Google Scholar
Swinburne, Richard, The Evolution of the Soul, revised edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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