In this unit of the course we will take a philosophical look at Christian theological ideas about life after death, including ideas about Heaven, Hell, resurrection, and souls. These are all linked notions. All of them present immense philosophical challenges. We can examine only some of the key issues.
What about souls?
Markham points out that the Bible never mentions immortal souls. That point may shock you. As Markham mentions at the start of the chapter, the concept of an immortal soul (of the sort people now associate with Christianity) does not come from the Bible, but rather from Greek culture and philosophy. Actually, the famous ancient Greek philosophers, who lived a couple of hundred years before Jesus, did not invent the idea of an immortal soul, but simply discussed and developed that idea which was commonly held in Greek culture at the time. Other cultures have also had ideas of something like this sort of soul, but the ancient Jewish culture did not.
Because Markham wants to tie his account of life after death to the Bible, he basically ignores the idea of immortal souls, and concentrates on the idea of a physical resurrection, which is what Jesus is quoted as endorsing and what St. Paul talks about in his New Testament writing. I think it is unfortunate that Markham does this, since the notion that people have immortal souls seems to me to dominate Christian thinking about life after death (at least in the Western world).
In this unit of the course, we will consider both the idea of an immortal soul and the idea of physical resurrection. Both ideas are philosophically interesting and have been discussed extensively by philosophers looking at the Christian tradition.
You might wonder how it happened that Christian thinking abandoned its Jewish roots and adopted the Greek idea about souls. That is an interesting historical question. For instance, the earliest summary of Christian doctrine, the so-called "Apostle's Creed", does not say anything about souls. So, the centrality of the notion of a soul developed later. But this is not a course in the history of Christian theology. For our purposes, it might be enough just to say that enough of the intellectual leadership in the Christian community found the notion of an immortal soul to be compatible with and supportive of Christian ideas to be a good conception to incorporate into Christian theology. Markham apparently disagrees.
Dualism
Markham, as well as others who mention the idea of souls, often use the term "dualism" in connection with the topic. What is dualism? Dualism, in this context, refers to a way of thinking about people (and, perhaps, conscious animals) according to which each individual consists of two parts: 1) a nonphysical part, typically called a soul or a mind, and 2) a physical part, typically called a body (including the brain). Do not confuse the brain with the mind or soul; according to dualism, they are associated with different parts of the person.
There clearly is some sort of connectedness between the two parts during our normal lives on earth. Christian dualists who believe in a literal individual life after death typically hold that at death the connection between soul and body is broken, and the soul continues to live on independently of the body while the body disintegrates and ceases its life. This idea, that the soul can live on independently of the body, is sometimes referred to as the idea of a "separable soul" -- the soul is separable from the body.
A great many people today, not just Christian people, think of human persons (and maybe also "higher" animals) in dualist terms. Talk of souls seems to be prevalent in popular culture in the US.
The ancient Jewish idea of persons was not dualistic. Even those Jewish people at the time of Jesus who believed in individual life after death did not think in terms of immortal souls that could be separated from the physical body in order to live on without the body. Instead, they thought in terms of a physical resurrection in which a person would live again with a body.
In the last century dualism has been generally rejected by psychology, by neuroscience, by cognitive science, and by secular philosophy. There are serious problems with dualism, some of which we will be discussing.
Christian theology and dualism
A few Christian theologians have begun to recognize that Christianity might not be well-served by being tied to dualism, either because scientific evidence against dualism has been mounting, or because they are not convinced that there is any Biblical support for the idea. There seem to be two courses open to theology if dualism is abandoned:
a) Go back to the original New Testament view about individual life after death, taken quite literally. That means life after death requires a physical resurrection of the individual. Drop all talk of immortal souls. (Presumably, Markham fits into this mold.)
b) Go back to the original New Testament view about individual life after death, but don't take it literally. Instead, take the talk of resurrection as metaphor. For example, the story about Jesus' resurrection could be taken to mean simply that his followers came to feel his continued presence among them as though he were still alive.
We will look at how each of these approaches might be developed, and what philosophical problems there are with option (a).
To do now:
Read the Markham chapter.
Write brief answers to the following, to turn in:
1. According to your own personal understanding of what people mean when they talk about immortal souls, does a person's immortal soul engage in any activity while the person is alive on earth, or is it like a completely inert thing hiding inside of the person, doing absolutely nothing, and aware of nothing?
2. According to your own personal understanding of what people mean when they talk about immortal souls, after a person has died and the body is no longer functioning, what happens to the soul? Does the soul then engage in any activity at all, or is it completely inert?