Other views for life after death, which fit into the motion of dualism, include the immortality of the soul and the reincarnation of a person.
Firstly, reincarnation is a view of life after death in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. ‘The view is held that we have lived many lives before and that, on death, we will be reborn again. The conditions of our present lives are believed to be a direct consequence of our previous lives’. During reincarnation the claim is that the soul migrates after death to another body. According to many of the eastern religions the soul was never born and will never die, but undergoes successive incarnations until it is released and goes onto some higher existence. Serious evidence for reincarnation is the phenomenon of yoga memory- the experience of certain people, usually children who claim to be someone else reborn and to ‘remember’ the previous life.
Let us consider some of the most serious objections that are raised against reincarnation. “The first has to do with the equivocal nature of the evidence for the doctrine. Such phenomena as instincts, child prodigies, love at first sight, and déjà vu are sometimes said to be evidence for reincarnation, but they have little probative value, since it is quite possible to give convincing explanations of these phenomena that do not involve reincarnation”
Another objection to reincarnation concerns the relationship between a person and their karmic heir, the future person whom believers in reincarnation will claim in the reincarnation of me. Suppose I die is ten years time and that I have a karmic heir who will be born soon thereafter. Notice that karma seems just only if the other person is me. Otherwise it will be hardly fair for the other person to experience the karmic consequences of my deeds. But the problem is that it does not seem that this other person is I. They will share none of my looks and will not obtain all of my memories maybe some yoga ones, so what is it that connects us both together. So this criticism of reincarnation is that even if we all have karmic reincarnationalists cannot convincingly argue that my karmic heir will be me.
Secondly, immortality of the soul is the belief that the soul belongs to the realm of the eternal and can therefore exist after the death of the contingent body. “Immortality is accordingly a near neighbour of reincarnation- both are based on mind- body dualism; both hold that the immaterial essence survives death”. In Phaedo, Plato stated that the body belongs to the physical and like all physical things it will one day turn to dust. Plato was a great defender of the immortality of the soul.
Philosophers David Hume and Immanuel Kant maintained that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is not capable of being demonstrated or logically deduced from known facts. Hume attempted to prove that men’s belief in immortality could only be justified by revelation. Hume’s views are stated in his ‘essay on the immortality of the soul’. The first paragraph of his essay contains the following sentence- ‘but in reality it is the Gospel and the Gospel alone, that has brought life and immortality to life’. This view of life after death is severely criticised because the argument does not seem to cohere. The philosopher Flew, an atheist argued that the idea of non-bodily existence is not just false but incoherent.
However, there are some scholars that hold the view that immaterial existence is at least possible. In Jeff Astleys article ‘thinking about life after death’ he notes H. H Prices view on the survival of a disembodied self. Price paints a coherent picture of a dream like world of immaterial objects. Prices
view was that ‘souls inhabit a coherent immaterial world, one in which imaging replaces perceiving. Experiences would be like perceptions in dreams, in that they would be mind dependant and have their own space. Dream objects occupy their own space but this space is not part of the space of this waking world’. If we experience and act in dreams via dreamed bodies so could we do this in a life beyond the grave. Price also went on and said that ‘communication between minds would be via telepathy. A telepathic communication from another mind would give rise to an appropriate image of that other person’. Price was not predicting that we would one day inhabit this sort of world described by him. Price himself was agnostic in the question of life after death. He was just attempting to jigsaw together a picture of a possible immaterial world. On the other hand, Prices accounts do suffer a number of problems. Atheist like Bertrand Russell would respond to this view by arguing that there is no empirical evidence to prove the view and like Hume stated proof for immortality can only be proved via revelation and that it is a mere fantasy.
The most debated issue surrounding this view of life after death is the contemporary elements such as near death experiences (NDE’s) and out of body experiences (OBE’s). Many people have given statements about OBE’s and NDE’s where there are a number of similarities amongst them all (walking through tunnel, towards a light and meeting deceased friends and family). If the mind can leave the body then it can amount to evidence of mind body dualism. It is extremely difficult to prove that the mind really does leave the body in such experiences. ‘Some have argued that OBE’s are quite natural events explainable responses of the brain to certain sort of bodily events and that the sense of being outside ones body is entirely subjective’.
Because both views reincarnation and the immortality of the soul as discussed above are based on mind body dualism they are subject to further criticisms. These further criticisms are regards to the mind body dualism concept. Gilbert Ryle 1949, in the Concept of Mind dismissed dualism. He rejected the notion that the body and mind are separate entities calling it a ‘category mistake’. He supported this idea by using an analogy of the university. He puts forward the case of a overseas student who is shown around a collegiate university town and sees the college, libraries, only to ask ‘but where is the university’, failing to identify that the university is not something separate from its continent parts. Thus, he went onto say that our mind id not a separate entity but just a term meaning what we do with our physical bodies. Descartes believed that the mind and body were separate and that the state of the body will affect the mind and vice versa. The point of interaction Descartes identified as the brain. However, this is not easy to comprehend, there are problems like, if we do have two separate entities then do they both end when we die or does one survive (i.e. immortality of the soul, reincarnation and disembodied self). There does seem to be strong evidence for the both being connected. For example during the consumption of drugs it can affect the mind.
An alternative to dualism is monism, which, is the view that the mind and body are of one and the same nature. The last view of life after death is resurrection, which falls into the notion of monism. This is the view held that after death the body disintegrates and one day God will recreate the dead human individual. This view is a tradition of Christianity, Islam and Judaism as well as other religions. Christians take the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter morning as support for this view. However, the reliability of the biblical evidence can be questioned.
The most serious objection to resurrection raised today is: what if a Christian is eaten by several sharks that then dispose of the body in several different oceans, then how could God possibly resurrect that Christian? Typical responses to this criticism were to appeal to the divine nature so therefore God being all-powerful is capable of doing it. Some hold the view that God can construct the person with entirely new matter, but as long as it is structured in the old way, personal identity is retained. So as far as personal identity is concerned, they appear to be correct- it could not just be a replica but the same person. John Hicks replica theory claims that God has the technology to recreate the mental and bodily elements of a person in a resurrected world (heaven). There are problems with this theory, for instance if God can create one person X, he could recreate two identical X’s. Which will then be the real X. John Hick concluded to say that proof of life after death is via eschatological verification (proof after you die).
Having put forward the arguments for life after death it is now time to address the views against life after death. The ‘death ends all’ theory is the most notable view against the idea of life after death. This is the view that when we die that is it, there is nothing more. Supporters of this theory include many well-known philosophers such as Bertrand Russell and A J Ayer who were both existentialists. The most notable philosopher is however a Greek one namely Epicurus. This philosopher stated that although death maybe painful, it is soon over and there is no life after death thus no hell. Epicurus maybe correct that there is no life after death but he is wrong in his thinking that his argument could overcome human fear of death because for many the fear of non-existing is the prime reason for the fear of death.
To conclude, ultimately the only way life after death is verifiable is via eschatological verification. All of the views supporting the idea of there being a life after death are not coherent because they namely lack empirical evidence.
Philosophy of religion life after death by Jonathan Webber
Philosophy of religion life after death by Jonathan Webber
Topic 5 Human Destiny by Sarah Tyler
Philosophy of Religion by Stephen T Davis page 701
Philosophy of Religion by Stephen T Davis page 703
Jeff Astley- thinking about life after death
Jeff Astley- thinking about life after death
Philosophy of Religion by Stephen T Davis page 705