Download John Hick on resurrection

John Hick on resurrection
Thesis: Resurrection & what modern
science tells us about human nature are
compatible (cf. Linda Badham - modern
science and all theories of ongoing life are
incompatible)
 Modern science
Tells us that humans are a “psychophysical unity” (452)
There is no distinction between soul
& body
Hick on resurrection ~ slide 1
John Hick on resurrection
Hick: Now the notion of
resurrection is “consonant with” the
conception of the human person as an
“indissoluble psycho-physical unity,
and yet it also offers the possibility
of an empirical meaning for the idea
of life after death” (453).
Hick on resurrection ~ slide 2
John Hick on resurrection
 The notion of resurrection
Paul (in I Cor. 15:36-44) offers the
classic statement
 At death the whole person dies
 But God, by an act of sovereign
power, recreates the person, not
as an identical physical organism,
but as a soma pneumatikon
(“spiritual body”)
Hick on resurrection ~ slide 3
John Hick on resurrection
 Hick: This “spiritual body”
embodies the dispositional
characteristics & memory traces
of the deceased organism &
 Inhabits an environment
continuous with this “spiritual
body”
Hick on resurrection ~ slide 4
John Hick on resurrection
The problem of identity: Can this
“spiritual body” be the same person as
the deceased person? (Recall that
one of Badham’s criticisms of the idea
of resurrection is that persons cannot
retain identity without continuity.)
Hick on resurrection ~ slide 5
John Hick on resurrection
 Hick’s defense of the intelligibility
of identity of the person without
continuity: three imaginary case
histories
 1. Person in London disappears
& suddenly reappears in New
York--same personality,
continuity of memory, same
beliefs, same habits. Only
thing possible is continuity
occupancy of space.
Hick on resurrection ~ slide 6
John Hick on resurrection
 This is intelligible, makes
sense.
 2. Person dies suddenly in
London, reappears in New York
with same character,
memories, etc. We would be
forced to say that this is the
same person.
Hick on resurrection ~ slide 7
John Hick on resurrection
 3. Person dies and person with
same character traits,
memories, etc. appears in a
resurrected world. Should we
say this is the same person?
Hick: Yes (458).
Hick on resurrection ~ slide 8
John Hick on resurrection
 Hick states that what he has tried to
show is the “conceivability of
resurrection as the divine re-creation
of the individual after his earthly death
as a total psycho-physical ‘replica’ in
another space” (461).
 Thus note that he is not offering an
argument for the existence of
resurrection, but for its intelligibility.
Hick on resurrection ~ slide 9