Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Author’s Abstract

• In the last ten years or so there has been some lively discussion of the questions of immortality and resurrection. Within the Christian tradition there has been debate at theological and exegetical level over the relative merits of belief in the immortality of the soul, and belief in the resurrection of the dead as an account of life after death. Further to this, however, there has been the suggestion that there may be good philosophical reasons for preferring the latter to the former. It is just this contention which I propose to discuss.
• I intend in the first section of the paper to outline the problems which have been set against belief in the immortality of the soul. I shall then consider in sections II and III whether or not the belief in the doctrine of the resurrection of the body can deal with these problems any more adequately than can the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. In the final section I shall discuss difficulties which arise within the Christian tradition and to which I do not believe that either doctrine offers a satisfactory solution, and which suggest the inadequacy of this kind of approach as an account of the religious belief in life after death.