Christian Beliefs About Life After Death

178 Pages·1976·15 MB·English

by  Paul Badham (auth.)

CHRISTIAN BELIEFS ABOUT LIFE AFTER DEATH
LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
General Editor: John Hick, H. G. Wood Professor of Theology
University of Birmingham
This new series of books will explore contemporary religious
understandings of man and the universe. The books will be
contributions to various aspects of the continuing dialogues
between religion and philosophy, between scepticism and
faith, and between the different religions and ideologies.
The authors will represent a correspondingly wide range of
viewpoints. Some of the books in the series will be written
for the general educated public and others for a more
specialised philosophical or theological readership.
Already published
William H. Austin
THE RELEVANCE OF NATURAL SCIENCE TO
THEOLOGY
Paul Badham
CHRISTIAN BELIEFS ABOUT LIFE AFTER DEATH
Ramchandra Gandhi
THE AVAILABILITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS
Hugo A. Meynell
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF
BERNARD LONERGAN
Dennis Nineham
THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE BIBLE
John J. Shepherd
EXPERIENCE, INFERENCE AND GOD
Robert Young
FREEDOM, RESPONSIBILITY AND GOD
Further titles in preparation
CHRISTIAN BELIEFS
ABOUT LIFE
AFTER DEATH
Paul Badham
Lecturer in Theology
St David's University College
Lampeter, Wales
@ Paul Badham 1976
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First published 19 76 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in New York
Dublin Melbourne johannesburg and Madras
ISBN 978-1-349-03015-6 ISBN 978-1-349-03013-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-03013·2
This book is sold subject
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of the Net Book Agreement
Contents
Acknowledgements Vl
Preface
Vll
PART I
1. The Contribution of the Old Testament to the
Development of the Christian Hope 3
2 The Significance of Jesus' Resurrection 18
PART II
3 The Traditional Belief in the Resurrection
of the Flesh 4 7
4 John Hick's Theory of the Divine Creation
of an Exact Replica 65
5 The Resurrection of the Body in Modern Thought 85
PART III
6 A Defence of the Concept of the Soul 97
7 A Critique of the Mind-Brain Identity Theory 105
8 Why Materialism is a Self-refuting Theory 125
9 The Immortality of the Soul 133
Notes 147
Reference Index 167
Subject Index 170
Index of Names 172
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Professor John Hick for his encouragement,
guidance, help and friendship throughout the years of
research which preceded this book. I also thank the
parishioners of St Chad's Rubery, Birmingham, for enabling
me to combine university research with a parochial ministry,
and for impressing upon me the crucial significance of this
topic for Christian faith today. My gratitude is also due to
the students of St David's University College, Lampeter,
discussions with whom greatly helped me in the task of
re-writing the material of my doctoral thesis into the form of
this present book, and in particular to Helen Onne and
Gerald Parsons for reading the proofs, and the latter also for
checking quotations. I also thank Mrs Myra Jones for typing
the script so efficiently and promptly.
But my greatest debt is to my beloved wife Linda, who has
helped at every stage of the book's development, and whose
scientific learning, clarity of thought, and enthusiastic
assistance have been of the utmost benefit to me.
P.B.
Preface
My purpose in writing this book is to explore the foundations
of Christian belief in life after death, to examine the ways in
which this belief has been given expression, and to see
whether it is tenable today.
In Part I, I consider how the religious faith of the Old
Testament logically points forward towards a life beyond
death and I seek to show how the Resurrection of Jesus came
to be regarded as the foundation of the Christian Hope.
In Part II, I consider three versions of the doctrine of the
Resurrection of the Body. I argue that any theory which
postulates some kind of physical continuity between this
existence and the next is no longer tenable, and that more
sophisticated versions of what bodily resurrection means, in
logic rely on some concept of a soul to ensure personal
continuity.
In Part III, I defend the concept of the soul against
contemporary materialist doctrines of man and seek to show
the logical possibility of immortality.
P.B.
Part I
1 The Contribution of the
OldTestament to the
Development of the
Christian Hope
The Old Testament's understanding of death and immortality
can be approached from two quite different positions. On the
basis of its doctrine of man, any possibility of a future life
would seem excluded. Yet in the light of its faith and trust in
God, the Old Testament seems to point in a direction which
must, and which did, lead to the development of a
resurrection hope.
'We must all die. We are like water spilt on the grounds
which cannot be gathered up again. '1 'Man will perish for ever
like his own dung.'2 He is 'of dust and will return to dust.'3 In
the grave he will rot away, 'with maggots beneath him and
worms on top. '4 Such is the Old Testament picture of the
finality of death. It derives naturally from the Hebrew
insistence that man is not an incarnate soul,-but an animated
body. He is an irreducibly physical being whose only possible
life is on this earth and whose earthly life is bound up with
the existence of the body. 5
It is true that some passages speak of the soul departing at
death/ or of the spirit returning to God, 7 but the consensus
of Hebrew scholars is against any appeal to such passages as
testimony of the immortality of the human spirit.8 The
primary meaning of ruah, or 'spirit' is the Spirit of God, the
animating principle of all that lives. 9 Man like all other
creatures/0 comes to life only because God breathes into him
his own breath. 11 This breath is on loan, 12 and when God
withdraws it, the creature dies. 13 So, when Ecclesiastes says,
'Dust returns to the earth as it was, but the spirit returns to
God who gave it', 14 he is not asserting the spirit's conquest of
death, but only that God is taking back his own sustaining
spirit. Similarly nepes or 'soul' basically means 'life, and what