A Philosophical and Historical Case for Life After Death

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by Chad V. Meister –

MIND, BODY, AND THE POSSIBILITY OF LIFE AFTER DEATH

Various conceptions of the human self-have been held in the West, the two foremost being dualism and materialism. Historically, dualism has been the more prominent of the two. There are different conceptions of dualism as well, but on one main account a human person consists of two substances, one material (the body) and the other immaterial or mental (the soul or mind). Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is perhaps the most widely recognized defender of substance dualism. On his account, sometimes called the Cartesian view of the soul, the soul is an unextended, non-spatial substance, and it is contrasted with the body, an extended, spatial substance. The soul and the body are (somehow) connected to one another, but how an immaterial substance can connect to and interact with a physical substance is a bit of a mystery—a mystery which has often been castigated as the problem of the “ghost in the machine.”1

Another version of dualism is the Thomistic view, derived from the work of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), in  which  the soul is understood to be a unity of inseparable parts, including mental states (such as feelings, thoughts, and sensations), capacities, powers, and structures. On this account the soul, although immaterial, is what animates, unifies, and develops the biological functions of the physical body. The soul is more deeply integrated with the self than on the Cartesian view, for the soul is the essence of a person; it is an individual’s source of life as well as the ordering principle of the person.2

In one form or another, many of those in the Western religions have been dualists as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Koran all seem, on a straightforward read at least, to affirm the reality of body and soul. Most of the major Western philosophers have also held to some form of dualism.3

Furthermore, most dualists maintain that there is life after death. For some, immortality involves an embodied state, and the Jewish, Christian and Islamic views of the resurrection of the body are cases in point. For others, life after death involves being reincarnated in another physical existence— perhaps as another person, an animal, or even a bug. Yet for other dualists, life after death is disembodied existence where the soul is forever separated from any future physical existence.

If human persons are constituted of body and soul, then the notion of continued existence after the death of the physical body is at least a philosophical possibility, especially if the soul is understood to be the essence of the embodied person. A number of arguments have been put forth in defense of dualism. Consider the following three. First, there is the distinction between physical events on the one hand and mental events on the other. Think about what you had for dinner last night. Do your thoughts about dinner have weight, shape, smell, or taste? Thoughts do not seem to be the kinds of things which can be described in terms of physics, chemistry and biology. They seem to not be physical things. But the brain events which are correlated with your thoughts of dinner are the kinds of things which can be described in terms of physics, chemistry and biology; they are physical things. Therefore, mental events and brain events are not identical; one is physical and the other is  not. The dualist argues that this distinction between the mental and physical is best explained within the dualist framework.4

A second defense of dualism is the knowledge argument. The following story is intended to demonstrate the heart of the argument:

Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’. . . .

What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism [or materialism, the view that everything which exists can be completely described in terms of physical information] is false.5

Since there are different kinds of experiences (subjective and objective) and different kinds of information (physical and non-physical) which a person can have, there is a difference between the physical and the mental. So, the argument continues, some form of dualism makes more sense than materialism as a general account of the self.6

A third argument for dualism comes from personal identity. Consider the following scenario. Suppose you took your automobile to the repair shop. The  mechanic  tells you that there are a number of problems with it and it will take him a week to get it repaired. Now suppose when you return a week later, you discover that he replaced every single part of the automobile with a new part—each fender, tire, bolt, everything (an expensive endeavor, for sure)! Would this still be the same automobile you brought in a week earlier? It seems evident that it would not be the same one. As a matter of fact, it could be argued that even if just one part had been replaced it would not literally be the same automobile; it would be similar, but not identical. Automobiles just are the physical parts of which they are constituted.

So, when it comes to objects like automobiles, a change of parts (and especially essential parts) changes the identity of the object. But what about human persons? Is it the same for us? If our “parts” change, are we still the same person? In one sense, all of our parts have changed since early childhood. All, or at least most all, of the cells in the human body are regenerated or replaced every seven years. At the quantum level things are even more in flux! But are we not yet the same person since birth? Is not that person in your childhood photos you? Substance dualists argue that we maintain absolute identity through change because our essence—our immaterial substantial soul—remains the same throughout bodily changes.

If materialism is true, when our bodies die, that’s it. We no longer exist (unless and until our same bodies are resurrected, that is). If dualism is true, however, when our bodies die, we could continue to exist in a disembodied state. On this view, then, the afterlife is a real philosophical possibility.

 

Arguments for Immortality

There are a number of arguments specifically defending immortality.7 Given space restraints we will limit our examination to three.

The Nature of the Soul

Building on the previous section in which it was argued that there are solid philosophical reasons for believing that human persons are embodied souls, a further philosophical argument can be added to contend for an afterlife. Both ancient and modern philosophers have argued for immortality based on the indestructible nature of the soul. Plato (428-347 BC), for example, in his book Phaedo argues that if we practice philosophy in the right way we can be cheerful in the face of death, for the soul of the one who rightly practices philosophy is immortal since it is pure and simple (that is, has no parts), just and divine-like. As such, it cannot be scattered or destroyed.8 More recently, J. M. E. McTaggart (1866-1925) has also offered an argument for the immortality of the soul based on its simplicity. He contends that the souls is probably immortal since (1) it is not constituted by separable parts and so cannot be destroyed through a separation of its parts (as material objects are destroyed), and (2) it probably cannot be annihilated since there is no evidence that anything is ever annihilated (even material objects don’t just cease to exist).9

The Nature of God 

For most theists across the religious spectrum, God is understood to be infinitely good, loving, wise, and just. As such, God is not the kind of being who would create human  persons with the longings and aspirations we have, including the hope of life after death, and then have these aspirations go forever unfulfilled. Furthermore, if  you love someone, you would not want that person to cease to exist. Since God loves us with an infinite and perfect love, he surely would not want us to cease existing. So, the argument goes, we can rest assured that if God exists, there will indeed be life after this life. Given the very nature of God, he will make it so.

Resurrection

Another kind of argument for an afterlife comes  not from philosophy but from history. The Abrahamic faiths all affirm the belief that our physical bodies will, in eschaton, be resurrected from the dead. On the historic Christian account, one bodily resurrection has already occurred: Jesus of Nazareth, Easter of course, is the Christian celebration of this event. The Apostle Paul actually uses Jesus’ resurrection as evidence for our own future bodily resurrection. As he puts is:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? . . . If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. (1 Cor. 15:12-22)

There is much debate in the recent literature in religious and biblical studies on the meaning of and historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, 10 Most biblical scholars – both those who believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead and those higher critics who do not-agree with the following: (1) Jesus died on a cross and was placed in a tomb, (2) Jesus body was gone from the tomb soon after his death (or at least the disciples believed this ), (3) Jesus’ disciples believed he was resurrected from the dead and appeared to and spoke with them, and (4) key Jewish leaders, including Saul of Tarsus (who became the Apostle Paul) and Jesus’ brother James, were converted to belief in and worship of Jesus shortly after his death. Given these historical events, the question then becomes what best explains this data. My own research has led me to conclude that the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is quite persuasive especially when considered within a theistic worldview.11 But don’t simply take my word for it; explore this evidence for yourself on both sides of the debate. Gary Habermas, Stephen Davis, and William Lane Craig are notable scholars who argue that Jesus’ literal, bodily resurrection provides the best explanation of the historical facts; Michael Martin, Antony Flew, and Robert Price are notable scholars who argue that a naturalistic account provides the best explanation of the historical facts about Jesus’ body after his death.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST IMMORTALITY

Just as there are arguments for immortality, there are also a number of arguments against life after death. Two of the most significant ones are explored next.

The Dependency of Consciousness on the Brain

One of the central arguments against immortality can be put this way.

  1. In order for a human being to be immortal, the individual human self must survive physical death.
  2. To be an individual human self entails being (able to be) conscious.
  3. For an individual human self to be conscious, he or she needs a live, physical brain.
  4. But the physical brain dies when the physical body dies.
  5. Therefore, the individual human self dies when the body dies.
  6. Therefore, a human being cannot be immortal.

The main premise in question for our purposes is number three, and several kinds of evidence are cited in support of it. First, since drugs and brain diseases affect mental abilities and consciousness this provides empirical evidence that brain activity and consciousness depend on the brain (or are identical to the workings of the brain). Similarly, brain damage also affects consciousness and mental capabilities. Beyond this, various mental abilities are locatable in the brain. For example, the prefrontal cortex is the area of the brain in which the operations of consciousness, thinking, learning, and imagination occur. Taken together, it is argued, these facts offer strong support that for an individual human self to be conscious, he or she needs a live, physical brain. Since dead persons lack a live, physical brain, there cannot be conscious life after death.

One response to this argument is that while having a live, functional, physical brain may be a sufficient condition for consciousness, it is not a necessary condition. As I argued above, a number of dualists maintain that the soul (or mind) is not identical to the brain and continues to exist in a conscious state even after the death of the physical body. Another response is to agree that individual human selves do need a live, physical brain to be conscious, and that they will not be conscious following the death of the body unless, say God gives them a new body. Nevertheless, they will be conscious once again when they are resurrected bodily from the dead.

Personal Identity

Another argument against life after death directed at the dualist has to do with personal identity. If souls continued to exist in a disembodied state after the death of physical body, then what would identify them as unique, individual persons? I can identify my friend Jim as the unique individual he is by pointing to him, or describing his physical characteristics, or perhaps by noting the way he behaves when in certain situations. But if Jim had no physical body, how could he possibly be identified as Jim? How could he  be distinguished from, say, my other friend Terry? What would it be that made him the unique person he was when embodied?

A dualist could respond by claiming that, even if it were not possible for one to identify a disembodies soul, or to distinguish one soul from another, it does not follow that such disembodied souls could not exist. While there might be an epistemic (knowledge) problem, it does not follow that there is an ontological (being) problem. Furthermore, as Christians (and many other monotheists) have historically believed that human immortality will entail embodied life, it could be the resurrected body which constitutes the criterion for re-identification after death (from an external, third person perspective) while the immaterial soul would constitute the survival criterion (from an internal, first person perspective).

CONCLUSION

Several notable philosophical arguments for dualism have been offered here. If dualism is true, then life after death is at least plausible. We also explored several arguments for immortality: two philosophical (one based on the nature of the soul and the other based on the nature of God) and one historical (based on the resurrection of Jesus). Alone these arguments may not seem tremendously persuasive for life after death, but cumulatively they should at least provide motivation for openness to the idea. We then examined two of the most formidable objections to immortality and found significant difficulties with both of them.

While none of this argumentation proves that there is life after death, it certainly shows that a solid case can be made for it. Belief in the afterlife need not be based on blind faith.

Chad Meister is Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Bethel College. His books include God is Great, God is Good and The Cambridge Companion to Christian Philosophical Theology.

Notes

1British philosopher Gilbert Ryle first used the term “ghost in the machine” as a deprecating description of Rene Descartes’s substance dualism.

2For an explication and defense of this view, see J.P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae, Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethnics (Downers Gove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), esp.202-213.

3In the East, too, there are Hindu conceptions in which a distinction is held between the individual soul (atman) and the physical matter (prakriti) which makes up the body.

4For a sustained defense of substance dualism, see Richard Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).

5Frank Jackson, “Epiphenomenal Qualia,” Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1982), 130.

6It should be noted that the knowledge argument attempts to establish that conscious experience includes non-physical properties. It is not necessarily an argument for substance dualism per se, but rather an argument against the physicalist or materialist position in which only physical properties exist. Mental events could either supervene or be epiphenomenal on physical events in ways that avoid substance dualism.

7The term “immortality,” while literally meaning “Not-dying,” is typically used in reference to immoral souls. However, I have used the terms “immortality” and “life after death” interchangeably in this article.

8For the central argument, see Phaedo, 100b-107a.

9See J.M.E. McTaggart, Some Dogmas of Religion (London: Edward Arnold, 1906), 108-09.

10For a recent work on the pro-resurrection side, see Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2004). For a recent work on the skeptical side, see Robert M. Price and Jeffrey Jay Lowder, eds., The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005).

11For more on this, see my Building Belief: Constructing Faith from the Ground Up, Grand Rapids, Baker, 2007.

(First published in Areopagus Journal Vol. 11 No. 4 – Life After Death)