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Disembodied Existence in an Objective World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

J. C. Yates
J. C. Yates
Affiliation:
Chapel Hill, Queensland, Australia
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Extract

In a 1953 paper H. H Price described a possible set of afterlife conditions for a disembodied self or consciousness. His model has remained something of a benchmark for dualist philosophers up to the present day. The purpose of this article is to begin with Price and, noting certain major weaknesses in his position, put forward an alternative view which is both more consistent and more theistic.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , December 1987 , pp. 531 - 538
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

page 531 note 1 Price, H. H., ‘Survival and the Idea of “Another World”’, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, CLXXXII (1953), 1–25.Google Scholar Reprinted in Penellium, T. (ed), Immortality (Belmont: Wadsworth, 1973), pp. 21–47.Google Scholar References are to the original article.

page 531 note 2 Price, , p. 16.Google Scholar

page 531 note 3 Lewis, H. D., The Self and Immortality (London: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 172–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 532 note 1 Price, , p. 20.Google Scholar

page 532 note 2 At one stage John Hick seems to have embraced this possibility as a way in which the principle of judgement, karma, could be outworked after death. Christianity at the Centre (London: S.C.M., 1968), p. 52. Later, however, he reasoned that a plastic Next World, devoid of disciplines and hazards, would lessen moral progress. Death and Eternal Life (London: Collins, 1976), p. 273. Reichenbach, Brue, ‘Price, Hick and Disembodied Existence’, Religious Studies, XV (1979), 317–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has met Hick on his own grounds, arguing that the fixity of the telepathically communicated desires of other minds regarding our thinking would powerfully influence moral development.

page 532 note 3 Price, , pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

page 532 note 4 Flew, Anthony; ‘The Question of Survival’, in Penelhum, T. (ed), Immortality (Belmont: Wadsworth, 1973), pp. 118–37Google Scholar, does invoke a super-E.S.P. hypothesis to explain mediumship evidence. But, given that there are alternatives available to this explanation, and that Flew himself would wish to restrict telepathy to embodied individuals, the point remains.

page 533 note 1 Contra Badham, Paul, Christian Beliefs About Life After Death (London: S.P.C.K., 1976), p. 145CrossRefGoogle Scholar, it is insufficient to reduce Christ's presence to a supreme psychical influence for good.

page 534 note 1 E.g. Luke 23:24; Acts 7:59; 2 Corinthians 5:1–8; Philippians 1:21–23.

page 534 note 2 E.g. Luke 24:39, ‘See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.’

page 534 note 3 Matthew 28:9; Luke 24:39, 43 John 20:27; John 21: 9–14; Acts 7:59; Philippians 3:21; Revelation 1: 7, etc.

page 534 note 4 Quinton, A.; ‘Spaces and Times’, Philosophy (April 1962), 130–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Cf. Hick, ; Death and Eternal Life, Pp. 279ff.Google Scholar

page 535 note 1 Ibid. p. 144.

page 536 note 1 E.g. Berkeley, G.; A New Theory of Vision and Other Writings (London: Dent, 1970), pp. 134, 140, 190–1, etc.Google Scholar

page 537 note 1 Cf. Kenny, A.; God and the Philosophers (Oxford; Clarendon, 1979), pp. 72ff.Google Scholar

page 538 note 1 Aquinas, St Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 4, 92, 4.Google Scholar