Personal Identity and Death
From Body, Soul and Personal Identity
- Created by: Olivia Grace Matthews
- Created on: 09-05-15 11:02
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- Personal Identity and Death
- Resurrection of the Body
- Continuation of the whole body after death
- Dead bodies usually decay or are cremated. Raises the question of how the body could be resurrected?
- Have to be possible to recognise the resurrected person
- Any other form would mean that the personal identity of the individual had not survived.
- This led to replica theory
- John Hick's Replica Theory
- Hick = Materialist. Believes body and soul are one
- Dead could exist after if an exact replica were to appear of them
- The replica is the same person
- Compatible with Christianity and what St Paul said
- God is all-powerful so it is no problem for his to create a replica
- It would be complete with the same memories and characteristic
- Although death destroys us, God recreates us in another place
- Problems of PI and a replica body
- Replica is not the original and is therefore THE individual has not survived death
- E.g like someone paying millions for a replica of The Mona Lisa
- Many philosophers do not accept that a replica is the same 'I' that died
- It is a question of which statement is accepted as correct...
- 'First I existed in this world, then I died, and then I existed again in the next world OR
- 'First I existed in this world, then I died, then God created someone else who is exactly similar to me
- Hick's Response
- He imagined a man called John Smith who lived in the U.S
- One day he disappeared and a replica appeared in India. They are exactly the same.
- He supposed John Smith died and God recreated him in the next world
- Hick is relying on the existence of God which isn't proven
- Resurrection of the Body
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