Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages

Personal Identity

Resurrection

(Text as at 17/02/2021 01:17:46)

*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***

Plug Note¹

• This is a sub-topic of Life after death², the others being:-
  → Immortality³, and
  → Reincarnation⁴.
• To these historical options we can now add the various hopes of:-
  → Transhumanism⁵
• This topic – the subject of the projected 11th Chapter⁶ of my Thesis⁷ – will add interest, though hopefully some of the Islamist topicality will have gone by the time my Thesis is presented.
• As the motivation for this discussion is partly the occasionally pernicious effects of a belief in a resurrection to paradise, the metaphysical possibility of the resurrection of beings like us is very important. It is also important to millions of non-explosive Americans.
• The Thesis will aim to prove that resurrection requires substance dualism.
• I will need to ensure I understand just what is believed by intellectually-respectable Christians and Muslims (though the topical believers are not amongst the ranks of the intellectually-respectable).
• Some discussion will be had about the orthodox Christian view being that there is no continuity of matter (the conundrum about the person consumed by cannibals was early recognised), and that the resurrection body is said to be in some sense a “spiritual” body.
• A good place to start for an understanding of what resurrection meant to Christians prior to the modern era is "Bynum (Caroline) - Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200 - 1336".
• As for the worries of contemporary Christian philosophers, the best place for evaluating contemporary Christian philosophical views on the metaphysical possibility of resurrection is "Gasser (Georg), Ed. - Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death?".
• One thing that strikes me is that the resurrection of Christ, taken to be the guarantee of our own resurrection, is no such thing in the sense of “showing it can be done”. The physical and metaphysical issues in resurrecting Jesus (or Lazarus, or Jairus’s daughter, or any recently-deceased person whose body is substantially intact) are much less than in the case of those whose bodies have been destroyed. Indeed, it might one day be possible to resurrect the recently-deceased by way of microscopic repair; at least this seems conceivable, whereas the resurrection of a human being whose body has become dispersed and whose parts have been recycled doesn’t even seem to make sense (on a materialist⁸ account of what we human persons are).
• I have some other notes on this and related topics as part of Philosophy of Religion⁹ and my Blog¹⁰:-
  → 1 Corinthians: 15¹¹
  → Death and Eternal Life¹²,
  → Resurrection¹³, and
  → Resurrection (Metaphysics)¹⁴.
• For a page of Links¹⁵ to this Note, Click here. There are too many links, so I’ve not performed an updating run.
• Currently, the categorised reading-list below includes a host of Biblical or theological discussions of resurrection of very variable quality which are irrelevant to my philosophical concerns. In the lists below, I’ve separated out what seems of value and segregated it into items that focus on philosophical matters on the one hand and those on the other that – while having some philosophical interest – are written from a religious perspective and anticipate religious motivation in the reader.
• So, works on this topic that I’ve actually read¹⁶, include the following:-
  • Philosophical:
    1. "Atkinson (Thomas) - Material Beings and the Metaphysics of the Resurrection", 2014, Internal PDF Link
    2. "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Material Persons and the Doctrine of Resurrection", 2001, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    3. "Bynum (Caroline) - Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity: Preface + Introduction - Seed Images, Ancient and Modern", 1995, Write-Up Note¹⁷
    4. "Carruthers (Peter) - After-Life for Materialists", 1986
    5. "Carruthers (Peter) - After-Life for Physicalists", 2004
    6. "Chappell (Tim), Chappell (Sophie Grace) - Seeds: On Personal Identity and the Resurrection", 2016, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    7. "Davis (Stephen T.) & Martin (L. Michael) - Debate: Is It Rational for Christians to Believe in the Resurrection?", 2004, Annotations
    8. "Gasser (Georg) - Personal Identity and Resurrection: Introduction", 2010, Annotations
    9. "Heythrop Student - Seminar Paper: Philosophy of Religion - I Will Survive", 2010, No Abstract
    10. "Hudson (Hud) - Multiple Location and Single Location Resurrection", 2010, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    11. "Loose (Jonathan) - Constitution and the Falling Elevator: The Continuing Incompatibility of Materialism and Resurrection Belief", 2012, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    12. "Olson (Eric) - Immanent Causation and Life After Death", 2010, Write-Up Note¹⁸, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    13. "Olson (Eric) - Life After Death and the Devastation of the Grave", 2015, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    14. "Perry (John) - A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality", 1978
    15. "Price (H.H.) - Motives for disbelief in life after death", 1971
    16. "Price (H.H.) - The post-Resurrection appearances", 1971
    17. "Price (H.H.) - Two conceptions of the Next World", 1971
    18. "Russell (Bertrand) - Do We Survive Death?", 1985, Write-Up Note¹⁹
    19. "Shoemaker (David) - Personal Identity and Immortality", 2009
    20. "Singh (Yii-Jan) - Semen, Philosophy, and Paul", 2007, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    21. "Thomas (Janice L.) - What matters for survival and the logical possibility of resurrection", 2000
    22. "Van Inwagen (Peter) - I Look for the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to Come", 2016, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    23. "Zimmerman (Dean) - Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited", 2010, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    24. "Zimmerman (Dean) - Video: Can We Survive Our Death?", 2015
  • Religious:
    1. "Atkinson (Basil F.C.) - Life and Immortality: An Examination of the Nature and Meaning of Life and Death as they are revealed in the Scriptures", 1964?
    2. "Bullinger (E.W.) - The Resurrection of the Body", 2006
    3. "Guillebaud (Harold E.) - The Righteous Judge: A Study of the Biblical Doctrine of Everlasting Punishment", 1964?
    4. "Himmelfarb (Martha) - Afterlife and Resurrection", 2011, No Abstract
    5. "Ozanne (Charles) - If there is no resurrection of the dead … What then? An exposition of 1 Corinthians 15", 2013
    6. "Sanders (E.P.) - The Historical Figure of Jesus: Epilogue - The Resurrection", 1993, No Abstract
    7. "Ward (Keith) - The Bad Argument: Review of A.C. Grayling's 'The God Argument'", 2013, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    8. "Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God: Preface, Bibliography & Indexes", 2003
• A further reading list might start with:-
  • Philosophical:
    1. "Atkinson (Thomas) - Conceivability, Possibility and the Resurrection of Material Beings", 2016, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    2. "Atkinson (Thomas) - The Resurrection of Material Beings - Recomposition, Compaction and Miracles", 2016?, Internal PDF Link
    3. "Badham (Paul) - Christian Beliefs About Life After Death", 1976
    4. "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Death and the Afterlife", 2005, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    5. "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Persons and the Metaphysics of Resurrection", 2010, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    6. "Braude (Stephen) - Personal Identity and Post-Mortem Survival", 2005, Internal PDF Link
    7. "Buckareff (Andrei A.) & Van Wagenen (Joel S.) - Surviving Resurrection", 2010, Internal PDF Link
    8. "Corcoran (Kevin) - Constitution, Resurrection, and Relationality", 2010, Internal PDF Link
    9. "Corcoran (Kevin) - Dualism, Materialism and the Problem of Post Mortem Survival", 2009, Internal PDF Link
    10. "Davis (Stephen T.) - Physicalism and Resurrection", 2001
    11. "Davis (Stephen T.) - Resurrection, Personal Identity, and the Will of God", 2010
    12. "Drange (Theodore M.) - The Pluralizability Objection to a New-Body Afterlife", 2015
    13. "Gasser (Georg), Ed. - Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death?", 2010, Footnote₂₀
    14. "Haag (Johannes) - Personhood, Bodily Self-Ascription, and Resurrection: A Kantian Approach", 2010, Internal PDF Link
    15. "Hasker (William) - Materialism and the Resurrection - Are the Prospects Improving", 2011, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    16. "Hershenov (David) - The Metaphysical Problem of Intermittent Existence and the Possibility of Resurrection", 2003, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    17. "Hershenov (David) - Van Inwagen, Zimmerman, and the Materialist Conception of Resurrection", 2002, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    18. "Hudson (Hud) - Nothing But Dust and Ashes", 2001
    19. "Martin (L. Michael) & Augustine (Keith) - The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death", 2015
    20. "Merricks (Trenton) - The Resurrection of the Body", 2011, Internal PDF Link
    21. "Olding (A.) - Resurrection Bodies and Resurrection Worlds", 1970, Internal PDF Link
    22. "Penelhum (Terence) - Resurrection", 1970, No Abstract
    23. "Perrett (Roy W.) - Death and Immortality", 1987
    24. "Perrett (Roy W.) - Resurrection", 1987
    25. "Peters (Ted) - Resurrection of the Very Embodied Soul?", 2000, External Link
    26. "Puccetti (Roland) - The Conquest of Death", 1976, Internal PDF Link
    27. "Schartl (Thomas) - Bodily Resurrection: When Metaphysics Needs Phenomenology", 2010, Internal PDF Link
    28. "Strickland (Lloyd) - The doctrine of 'the resurrection of the same body' in early modern thought", 2010, Internal PDF Link
    29. "Sutherland (Stewart R.) - Immortality and Resurrection", 1967, Internal PDF Link
    30. "Swinburne (Richard) - The Possibility of Life after Death", 2004, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    31. "Tipler (Frank) - The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead", 1995
    32. "Tipler (Frank) - The Physics of Resurrection of the Dead to Eternal Life", 1995
    33. "Tipler (Frank) - What Happens After the Resurrection: Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory", 1995
    34. "Van Inwagen (Peter) - The Possibility of Resurrection", 1978, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    35. "Zimmerman (Dean) - Personal Identity and the Survival of Death", 2015, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    36. "Zimmerman (Dean) - The Compatibility of Materialism and Survival: The “Falling Elevator” Model", 1999, External Link, Internal PDF Link
  • Religious:
    1. "Alter (Michael J.) - The Resurrection & Christian Apologetics: A Critical Inquiry Volume 2", 2018
    2. "Alter (Michael J.) - The Resurrection: A Critical Inquiry", 2015
    3. "Anders (Paul C.) - Material Being and the Survival of Death: A Dilemma for the Religiously Oriented Materialist", 2006, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    4. "Aquinas (Thomas) - The Resurrection of Man", 1997, No Abstract
    5. "Aquinas (Thomas) - The Resurrection: Objections and Answers", 1973, No Abstract
    6. "Bacchiocchi (Samuele) - Immortality or Resurrection? A Biblical Study on Human Nature and Destiny", 2001
    7. "Bacchiocchi (Samuele) - Immortality or Resurrection? A Biblical Study on Human Nature and Destiny", 2001, Internal PDF Link
    8. "Badham (Paul) & Badham (Linda) - The Meaning of Resurrection, Immortality and Eternal Life", 1984, No Abstract
    9. "Bynum (Caroline) - Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200 - 1336", 1995
    10. "Corcoran (Kevin) - I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body and the Life of the World to Come", 2006
    11. "Cullmann (Oscar) - Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?", 1973, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    12. "Gillman (Neil) - The Death Of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought", 2006 / 1997
    13. "Hick (John) - The Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body Reconsidered", 1960, No Abstract
    14. "Hick (John) - The Recreation of the Psycho-Physical Person", 1997, No Abstract
    15. "Houston (Sam) - Possibility and Identity: Ricoeur and Frei on the Resurrection", 2007, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    16. "Knohl (Israel) - Messiahs and Resurrection in 'The Gabriel Revelation'", 2009
    17. "Macquarrie (John) - Christian Hope", 1978
    18. "Morison (Frank) - Who Moved the Stone?", 2010, Footnote₂₁
    19. "Ozanne (Charles) - The Life and Soul of Mortal Man: His Composition, Disintegration, and Resurrection", 1995
    20. "Russell (Robert John) - Scientific Insights into the Problem of Personal Identity in the Context of a Christian Theology of Resurrection and Eschatology", 2010
    21. "Steinhart (Eric) - The Revision Theory of Resurrection", 2008, Internal PDF Link
    22. "Swinburne (Richard) - The Probability of the Resurrection of Jesus", 2013, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    23. "Tapp (Christian) - Joseph Ratzinger on Resurrection Identity", 2010, Internal PDF Link
    24. "Turner (Geoffrey) - Varieties of Resurrection", 1975, Internal PDF Link
    25. "van Dyke (Christina) - Human Identity, Immanent Causal Relations, and the Principle of Non-Repeatability: Thomas Aquinas on the Bodily Resurrection", 2007, Internal PDF Link
    26. "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Resurrection", Undated, Internal PDF Link
    27. "Vasalou (Sofia) - Personal identity across temporal gaps: an Islamic view of the problem", Undated, Internal PDF Link
    28. "Wenham (John) - Easter Enigma: Are the Resurrection Stories in Conflict?", 1984
    29. "Wright (N.T.) - Can a Scientist Believe in the Resurrection?", 2007, Internal PDF Link
    30. "Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God", 2003
    31. "Wyatt (John) - Matters of Life and Death", 2009
• This is mostly a place-holder²².